An Erowid report by mindbodyproblems95
| DOSE: | T: +0:00 | 250 mg (.5 Packet) | Oral | Cool Aid Vein Rub |
| T: +3:15 | 1 Bowl | Smoked | Irish Essence Incense | |
| T: +3:45 | 250 mg (.5 Packet) | Oral | Cool Aid Vein Rub | |
| BODY WEIGHT: | 299.5 lb |
Like most of my experiences, this one began on a Friday with a walk to my neighborhood gas station. Unfortunately, my aunt had made me vacuum the entire apartment before she left for the night, so I got started a little later than I would have liked. It was only 5:00 PM, but there was already a line at the register eight-people long, most of them purchasing cheap beer and blunts. I wanted to see if the store had gotten any new key chains or lighters in, but there were some kids by the Slurpee machines, and I wanted to beat them to the line (I did not).
When I finally got to the register, The Pharmacist reached under the counter and pulled out a blue packet featuring a pair of smooth female legs and the words Cool Aid Vein Rub. “I guess it’s like acid or something,” he said. This made me very excited. I’ve always wanted to try LSD, but when you live in the middle of nowhere like I do, drugs like that are rare. I wanted to know more about the Cool Aid, but I could tell that the people behind me were growing impatient, and I still had to count out my change. I paid and left.
There are no other experience reports yet, and the packet didn’t have any directions (other than the usual “Not intended for human consumption”), so I wasn’t quite sure how to take this new legal high. When in doubt, I usually just snort things, but since it’s called Cool Aid, I decided to try mixing it with water. I sanitized my large popcorn bowl, dumped in the packet of white powder, and ran it full of cold tap water. I stirred the mixture with a spatula for about five minutes, but the powder kept settling at the bottom of the bowl. Eventually, I decided to just stir and sip.
I whipped the spatula as fast as I could and quickly raised the bowl to my mouth for a drink. It was extremely bitter, like chewed-up Benadryl (see my report “Antihistamine Dreamzzz”), and after a few sips, I began to gag. I went to get some sugar from the cupboard, but then I remembered that my aunt had recently started the South Beach Diet again and thrown all of it out. I considered walking next door to ask my neighbors, but after what happened last time (see “Moonwalk Chalk”), I was a little wary of knocking on their door, so I decided to just suck it up.
I think it’s best to see how a new drug is going to affect you before you take it all — plus, I was pretty close to vomiting — so after I’d drunk about half the bowl, I took a break and went to the living room to wait. My aunt watches the Food Network all day, so the only time I have control of the TV remote is when she’s out. There was a House, M.D. marathon on, and I lay down to watch.
* * *
Note: times are estimates.
[T: +0:30] As House danced around the hospital with a boom-box, I began to feel a slight tingle in my feet. At first, I thought it was just my restless legs syndrome, but then the feeling gradually spread to the rest of my body. When it reached the top of my head, my body began to buzz and my ears began to ring. The two seemed to be linked — the faster my body vibrated, the higher the pitch became in my ears. Finally, when the frequency got as high as it could go, my head jerked back like I’d been punched in the face. This happened between 30 and 40 times.
[T: +1:00] I had a terrible headache, and my neck was sore from all the jerking. I know how bad Tylenol is for your liver, but I didn’t want the pain to ruin the rest of my trip, so I decided to go to the medicine cabinet. When I tried to get up, however, I realized that I could not move anything below my shoulders. It was like sleep paralysis (see “Premature Reincarnation”), but I knew that I hadn’t been sleeping. I began to wonder if there would be visuals, but I could still see clearly at this point. House and his team were at a party with strippers.
[T: +1:15] After several minutes of rocking, I was finally able to roll myself off the couch. Once I was falling, my body woke up — just like in the movie Inception — but I still slammed my face hard on the floor. It took me a minute to get to my feet, but once I was standing, I couldn’t remember what I was going to do. Another episode of House was starting, so I lay back down on the couch. My head was killing me.
[T: +3:10] It had just been revealed that the last two episodes of House had been a hallucination, and I was pretty freaked out, so I decided to get up again. The effects seemed to have peaked, so I went back to the kitchen to redose. My limbs were like anchors, and I could barely stir, but once I got the mix going and took a sip, I immediately spit it back into the bowl. Apparently the drug had heightened my sense of taste because it was much more bitter than I remembered. I tried several more times, but the Cool Aid was undrinkable. I didn’t want to waste the evening, though, so I went to my room and smoked a bowl of the Irish Essence I had left over from a couple weeks earlier (see “They’re Always After Me Lucky Charms”).
[T: +3:30] My memory is a little fuzzy here, but somehow I ended up in my neighbors’ apartment again. This time I was in the kitchen, and all of the cabinets were wide open, their contents strewn across the floor. I could hear the little girl crying in the back, and her parents were with her, yelling something in Spanish. As I turned to go back to my apartment, I spotted a sugar dispenser on the counter. I yelled and asked if I could borrow it, and the father screamed to take it and leave. I guess he and his wife were at it again. I try to stay out of it.
[T: +3:45] The sugar definitely helped. The Cool Aid was still bitter, but I was able to drink the rest of the bowl without too much gagging. I went back to the couch and lay down. House was flying.
[T: +4:10] The visuals finally started to kick in, and the TV screen got so blurry I could barely make out the characters. I think my ears were playing tricks on me, too, because it sounded like House was rapping. Unable to follow the story, I decided to turn off the TV, but there were no lights on, so the room went pitch-black. Suddenly, a low, droning hum seemed to saturate the apartment. I was beginning to worry that the head jerking would start again — but then I saw him, emerging from the darkness. He loomed over me, scowling, judging. It was Dr. House. I tried to convince myself that he wasn’t really there — “House never visits patients,” I told myself — but there he stood. Finally, I asked him what he wanted, and he leaned over and said, “You’re going to die unless you tell me exactly what you’ve taken.” I swore to him that it was just vein rub, but House didn’t believe me. “Everybody lies,” he said, backing away into the shadows. “Everybody dies.” Then he was gone.
* * *
I woke up on the couch the next morning when my aunt got home. She was upset about the mess I’d left in the kitchen, but other than a stiff neck and a full bladder, I felt fine. Since I’ve never done LSD, I can’t say how accurate The Pharmacist’s comparison was, but my experience does not seem that similar to the reports I’ve read here. Next time, I will try snorting it to see if there’s any difference, though I’ll probably wait a couple weeks just in case there’s a tolerance.
Eric Jett is a writer, designer, and teacher from Charleston, WV. He is a founding editor of Full Stop.
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