STEPH DEROSA: PCTURE YOURSELF IN A CHAIR AT MY TABLE >>>

As you probably already know, your daily activities and thoughts are small stepping-stones in the creation of your dreams. My thoughts the last couple of days were: I had a deadline, I needed to churn out a Dinner with DeRosa, Pappi Swarner was going to spank me if I didn’t get it done, I felt so exhausted, yet all I wanted to do was cut my head off because it hurt so bad.

I’m pretty sure that my feverish mental state, along with some really cool drugs, led me to have the following medically-induced radical dream about my next Dinner with DeRosa:

They were having a party. I could hear them hooting and hollering with the loud music those young kids like to play. Everyone was laughing and carrying on. What a great time they were having, but where was I? Why wasn’t I invited? And where the hell was this party? I headed down the hallway, ears up, detecting the whereabouts of said party action. It was in the cabinet, behind the wooden door, and staring me right in the face: my loot of over-the-counter and under-the-counter medicine was having Dinner with DeRosa keg party without me.

Tums was there. He was part of the nerds, geeks and dweebs circle. He sat in the corner staring at all the other pretty medicines, but lacked the self-confidence to ask any of them out. As a matter of fact, I’m sure the lack of self-confidence was justified if you think about it. Tums are pretty useless. Does anyone even take Tums anymore? If you really want to fix some acid indigestion or heartburn, don’t you run for a Zantac or Pepcid nowadays? The only benefit Tums has now is that they have Calcium. Tums is the kind of guy, though, that you’ll run into 20 years from now and he’ll be smokin’ hot. And all the girls will be thinking they should’ve paid more attention to him while they had the chance.

Doing keg stands front and center was Alka-Seltzer. I’m thinking he’s part of the jock crowd. He automatically has a posse with him wherever he goes. Inside the box there are 36 other packages of fizzy tabs to always make him feel like he’s part of a group. So this guy is never alone, and always ready for a good time.

Imodium anti-diarrhea medication has emo kid written all over it. Imagine if diarrhea had a face, wouldn’t it have a sad, “I want to cut myself” kind of expression on it? Imodium was at the party, but it was tucked away into the corner hating itself and crying along with my sterile syringes. (Don’t judge me. I have them for allergy shots, OK?)

Listening to Broken Oars and living out the punk scene were all my tubes of ointments, balms and creams. Each tube expressed individuality in how it helped cure what ails me, yet they were all made up of basically the same composition. Much like a modern-day typical punk scene, correct?

Pepto-Bismol was the pretty pink girl that everybody loves. Yes, the life of the party. On the outside she beckons you with the “I can make you feel better” dress she likes to wear. But on the inside she’s a dirty little whore. You know she’ll get rid of the nausea, but the taste of sickness itself is the small price you have to pay to get the prize. Is there anyone out there that doesn’t gag a little as that pink shit slides down your throat? You swallow it anyway, don’t you? She’s evil, yet oh-so good for you.

So where was my lethal prescription in this party of the drug sectors, you ask. It was there, all right. It was leading the circle of stoners onto another journey of high imagination and twisted memories. Pretty much like I’m doing to you right now. I dare you to ever think of your medicine in the same light again.

Mangiamo!