College Memory

I was thinking about this for no reason last night. I didn't drink in college, in fact I don't do the alcohol thing at all. The hardest drug I've ever done without strict doctor's orders is over-the-counter pain-killer. But that didn't mean I didn't have... moments.

I don't remember which year it was, but I think I didn't have a roommate at the time. I got a flu or something, and it was bad enough I stayed in bed. I remember getting very dizzy every time I tried to stand up, but I was bored even though I was sick. I wanted to go to class, but couldn't make it to the door much less down the stairs from the Ridge to campus. I *did* manage to turn on the TV once in awhile, but I really didn't pay much attention to it. I sometimes thought it was on when it wasn't, and at times I thought it was off only to realize I was watching a show and not just imagining stuff.

Anyway, to make a short story long, there are two specific incidents I recall from that sickness. Besides the moment when some of my friends in the dorm realized I was sick and came to rescue me (they got me McDonald's foodstuff and orange juice). Anyway...

The first was when I was laying in bed and thought everything was normal. Except I couldn't figure out why the room was swaying back and forth. It was swaying so much that while I lay on my back in the bed I could occasionally see the floor right next to the bed, including my shoes. What was unusual about it was that at the time it was happening I thought it was completely normal. It wasn't until I thought about it later that I realized that I had to have been hallucinating to be able to see the shoes next to the bed.

The second was more disturbing. I imagined that I saw Candice Bergen on the TV, which in itself wasn't disturbing or even unusual. It was the 1990s. No, what was disturbing was that she was lip-syncing and dancing to "C is for Cookie" on Sesame Street. At that point I suddenly realized I was hallucinating and tried to get help.

Later, I found out that I wasn't hallucinating:

Candice Bergen in C is for Cookie
The bit about one minute in, where she's "dancing", are the bits that alarmed me enough to find a phone and call for help. That bit is burned into my brain in a way that very few other things are, and I thought for a long time that I hallucinated it.