I Just Needed a Nap

Sometime in the mid eighties when I was living alone on Bathurst Street just south of St Clair Avenue Madge and I decided to hang out on a day off. We got together in the early afternoon at her Raglan Avenue apartment and began partying drinking Freixenet, smoking weed and doing magic mushrooms. The day is a blur of costume dress-up and endless laughter, but not a crumb of food. We were too high to notice that we were hungry until well into the ninth hour when it was decided to hop into a cab directly to Dundas and Spadina. In no time we were seated at a table in a busy late-night Chinese eating emporium each with a loaded combo meal dinner plate steaming before us. Ravenous we inhaled the food in what seemed like under five minutes, had paid the bill and were waiting for our change when suddenly I looked Madge in the eye casually saying something about not being able to hear clearly. Like the sound was being muffled. Panic increased in my delivery as the sound level turned down further and then suddenly I stood upright shouting at the top of my lungs “Oh my god! I can’t see!” At that moment everything went black. By Madge’s account at that point I fainted falling flat on my face like a felled tree. Then the entire restaurant had gone silent and every eye was fixed on our table looking at me motionless in my face-plant position and Madge frightened and crouched on her chair. With all this attention directed at her Madge pleaded, “Somebody help!” and the room immediately sprung into action rushing our table, surrounding me and turning me face-up. Next Madge says I sprang upright into a seated position on the floor and clear as day said, “It’s ok. I just needed a nap!” and without missing a beat I bolted up to standing, grabbed my coat and Madge and went running out of the restaurant before our change had returned leaving a very generous tip. Outside we sat on the curb while Madge recounted the full story, filling in the parts where I had blacked out for less than thirty-seconds, and laughing so hard at, “I just needed a nap!”. There were no after-affects or lingering fogginess. We later attributed it to maybe a MSG reaction on a very empty stomach and drug and alcohol compromised person.