NO THANKS, I'LL PASS

No thanks, I'll pass on passing out, that is. Have you heard about these folks that pass out on purpose? Auto-asphyxiation it's called, or erotic-asphyxiation if done during sex. From what I've read, the pass-out junkies put something over their faces or clamp off their windpipes until the sudden loss of oxygen creates an endorphin-release high and sense of giddiness. In the erotic version, the black-out process reportedly increases sexual pleasure and amps up the orgasm. Now I've passed out three times in my life – not during sex, though, I try to stay awake for that! – and all I ever got was perspiration, puke, and pee. And embarrassed. Maybe I wasn't doing it right. You be the judge.

Pass Out #1

   A hot September, definitely Indian summer, found me living back home in Missouri with my parents after leaving my first husband. In need of a job and place to live in a hurry – I love Mama and Daddy, I do, but not to live with! – I decided a spiffy new hairdo would boost my confidence and be a first step into my new solo life. I tracked down an old friend from high school who had become a super stylist, and she gave me the glam treatment: cut, mousse job, blow dry, curling ironing, and a final shellacking with hairspray that could withstand a wind tunnel. I looked fabulous!

   Before meeting Mama at her work at Montgomery Ward and then having lunch together at Orange Julius, I took my new “do” out to run errands, check out apartments, and give blood. That last item might seem like an odd thing to do, but since I had moved away I hadn't donated blood once and felt guilty. Word of caution: Be careful what you feel guilty about because it may rear up and bite you in the ass.

   Even though I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I got everything done and made it to the store even before Mama's lunch break. She parked me in an empty back office to wait for her. No problem, I can amuse myself and rest a bit. I plopped on a 1950s metal desk, dangled my legs, and hummed a Skynyrd tune so as not to hear my stomach growling. I had declined the offer of a post-donation snack to save my calories for lunch. The Red Cross had some fine snacks, too – Little Debbie Nutty Bars and Oatmeal Creme Pies, Goldfish crackers, orange drink that tastes just like Tang – what a dummy I was to skip all that.

   I grabbed a Ward's sales circular and began thumbing through to get my mind off food. Not a good distraction, though, too much reminder of the clearance-rack clothes Mama always bought that made me feel even more uncool than I already was in high school. I decided to head on down to Orange Julius and wait for her there.

   I jumped off the desk to go tell Mama my plan and WHOA NELLIE! The room started to spin and take me with it. My gut bottomed out, leaving me feeling hollow as a gourd inside. Intense heat radiated from my empty belly through my entire body. Sweat beads popped out like a dam burst, especially on my freshly-coiffed scalp. The store sounds turned muffled as if I had dove underwater. The last thing I heard was a dull thud as my forehead slammed into an Army-surplus steel filing cabinet, which was just my height. Wasn't that nice for it to “catch” me like that and save me from falling face down onto the concrete floor?

   Faces I didn't know were staring down at me when my eyes opened. A lady was fanning me with a summer catalog, another wiped my face with a damp paper towel. I wasn't sure where I was, but I was sure every piece of my clothing was stuck to whatever I was lying on like I had just showered fully dressed. The faces' mouths were moving, but my ears still weren't working right. I tried to unstick myself and get up when black splotches floated before my eyes and even more sweat poured out of me, a river of it ran down my scalp and pooled under my neck. I stayed put.

   After more fanning and dabbing and a couple sips of ice water brought to my lips by a grandmotherly gal, my ears cleared and the splotches stopped floating. 

   “Are you alright?” I heard from the water lady. “My goodness, we heard a racket of banging and crashing in the receiving office and found you keeled over flat on the floor. You must've hit your head hard, look at that welt coming up on your forehead. What in the world were you doing in there? And who in the world are you?”

   Making no sense of all those words, I croaked out Mama's name and somebody went to fetch her from major appliances. Without needing a mirror, seeing Mama's face told me “whatever happened was bad and I looked even worse.”

   Her face wasn't kidding. When I was finally able to extricate myself from the sweaty vinyl sofa in the ladies lounge, bathroom mirrors were everywhere. My fancy hairdo was plastered to my head in the back and on one side, shellacked now with hairspray and sweat, while the other side was still poofy and styled. I looked like both the “before” and “after” pictures in a makeover magazine. The filing cabinet impression on my forehead was plumping like a hot dog under the skin, quickly morphing from blood red to bruised plum. My eye makeup, which I took extra time with that morning to accent the new hairstyle, had run halfway down my face in a waterfall of sweat. And my clothes? They hung on me as if I'd put them on straight from the washing machine.

   Turns out you shouldn't run around all morning on a hot day and empty stomach, give blood, and then get up too fast. Not unless you want to pass out cold, ruin your “do,” and resemble a drowned rat. Not unless you like being carried to the ladies lounge by two burly warehouse dudes you don't even know, driven home by your daddy because you can't see straight, then fill your belly and crash for five hours before you feel like yourself again. Take my word for it.

Pass Out #2

   Trying to pack too many to-dos into too little time makes me crazy, but it's just my way. This day was no exception.

   I was scheduled to do a one-to-five shift at my receptionist gig at a day spa, then I would see two massage therapy clients of my own there afterward. That would shoot the afternoon and evening, but I could still cram more into my morning. After the household chores I deemed “necessary” – most likely laundry or grocery buying, I don't remember – I got in an hour of aerobics with a workout DVD and worked up a hellacious sweat. And appetite.

   Besides all that it was time to give blood again, and today was the day. The Community Blood Center's promo to kick off the summer donation drive was on its last day, and I wanted a free t-shirt. Bad. The caption read, “'Iguana' give blood. I did, I did give blood!,” surrounding dancing iguanas in fiesta-colored sombreros and serapes. Just my kind of funky casual wear. So, after a quick shower, I hauled ass to the CBC to donate. My heart must've been pumping like an oil derrick at warp speed, because I was done in record time. Having learned my lesson from the Monkey Ward's incident, I even sipped Tang and nibbled a few Goldfish crackers before leaving.

   Perfect. I still had time to grab a mini-bun tuna sandwich and Cheddar Sun Chips at Subway on the way to work. Perfect day as well, cloudless blue sky and low humidity, to have my lunch picnic-style on the stoop outside the spa's back door and soak up some sun.

   The tuna and chips were delish, at least what I tasted while scarfing them down and watching my watch. Still had time for a quick cigarette before work. Nothing like a smoke to settle my stomach after a meal, which was a bit jumpy from all the running around.

   If you're not a smoker, you wouldn't have experienced that having a cigarette after a couple of drinks (of the alcoholic variety) seems to intensify the buzz. It's true, light up and all of a sudden you feel more drunkety drunk. So I'm not sure if it was the effect of having a smoke, smoking too fast, eating too fast, or all of the above plus pumping out my blood sprint-style, but when I stood up to go into work it was WHOA NELLIE time again. Here came the popping sweat, racing heart, hollow gut, and underwater ears. This time I knew exactly what was happening. It didn't help. I plopped down on my butt hard on the stoop, and that's all I remember.

   Some time later, I do remember thinking I was dead. I heard soft, heavenly music when my ears woke up. Everything was dark except for a faint glow around me. I was lying on something cushy, cocooned by a blanket. This is my funeral, I am in a coffin popped into my head, even though I had expressly asked to be cremated. Then someone touched me on the shoulder. I sat up with a jolt and the room spins. I wasn't dead but wished I was. Especially after Sheila, the spa owner who had come to check on me, filled in the disgusting details I had been thankfully blacked out through.

   According to her, when I plopped down I must have keeled over sideways, my face coming to rest ever so UN-gently on the cement. Despite the crimson bull's-eye on my cheek, this was really quite fortunate as I then upchucked my picnic all over the stoop. Had I passed out on my back, I might have drowned, or if I had slumped forward, I certainly would have soiled my outfit. So it could have been worse.

   When I wasn't at my desk at one o'clock, Sheila came looking for me in my usual smoking spot and found me when the back door hit my inert body. She and another massage therapist helped me to a therapy room – she claimed I was walking but that was news to me – put me on the massage table, lit some candles, covered me up because I was drenched in sweat, and let me sleep it off.

   I'm proud to say I did manage to finish the last two hours of my shift after my doze, even with hair that looked like a cow had lick-styled it and smelling of eau de sweat. Luckily, there is dim lighting for ambiance in the reception area so maybe none of the clients noticed my “hair-don't,” and I kept a candle burning on my desk to squelch my stench. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't have enough mojo to massage my clients and I bailed on them. And I'm ashamed to say I did not thank the person who policed up my puke. I didn't even ask who did it; I just couldn't. But the next time I had a stoop smoke the evidence was gone, leaving only a whiff of tainted tuna in the sweltering summer air to remind me of the picnic-upchuck pass-out.

Pass Out #3

   My blood-giving days are over. No, I wasn't banned for being an idiot and passing out twice, although I probably should have been since my post-donation dramas, while amusing (now), don't bode well for enticing new donors. Now I would still love to be able to offer my blood, but I am considered a “permanent deferral” due to a diagnosis I was given when a doctor was trying to rule out my having tuberculosis. Damn doctors don't know how to mind their own business. I don't have TB, never did have. I don't consider myself to have the diagnosed ailment either. But still I was honest in my disclosure, therefore the ban stands. So now I donate plasma. And get paid for it. I guess honesty does pay off in the long run.

   I've got this plasma-donation routine down too. My appointments are scheduled for my days off or after work, that way I'm not overtaxing my body. I take a quickie nap afterward, leaving me feeling refreshed and not drained the rest of the day. Plus, I amp up my hydration and protein on plasma days, two key components of a successful donation. Over a decade had passed since my last pass-out, and I'd never had an issue with donating plasma until . . . I monkeyed with the routine.

   Why I did things differently, I don't recall. Probably a case of post-plasma pass-out amnesia impeding my memory. Instead of sleeping in that day, I got up early and rushed around working out and writing. Instead of having my protein smoothie just before leaving to donate, I drank it right after I woke up and ate nothing else. Despite feeling a might hungry and tired, my donation went fine. I was feeling so fine, that I had a quickie smoke on the way home even though they recommend waiting an hour afterward. No problem, I thought, I have this down pat.

   I thought wrong. Getting up out of my car when I got home, the woozies set in. DMan came into the kitchen to greet me, and his sturdy hug settled me down. I just need to eat something, I told myself, and I'll be all better. Wrong again. I slapped chunky peanut butter on a slice of bread and nibbled it over the sink. My knees buckled after three bites, and I grabbed the sink. The sound of DMan's noon news from the TV started fading in my ears. After a fast flash of heat, sweat started to pour despite my being chilled from the donation-ending flush of saline and frigid temperature outside. I was right about this – I was going down.

   But I didn't hit the ground, that was a good thing. Otherwise DMan would have heard the thud, come running, and witnessed the unfolding spectacle. No, my body jackknifed into the sink, my feet barely touching the floor while my forehead came to rest on the plastic mat on the garbage disposal side. Somehow my mind was working enough to say, “Chew, chew. Don't swallow or you'll choke.” I kept chewing in sloooow motion, the wad of doughy peanut butter swelling more in my mouth with every chew. Then I felt another flash of warmth, this time down my thighs. My bladder had blacked out as well, and I was powerless to stop the trickle of pee saturating my jeans. When things go wrong for me, they go WAY wrong. But at least my bowels didn't buckle like my knees and bladder.

   I have no idea how long I was “inSinkerated.” My ears waking up are always my sign that I'm coming to, and eventually I could hear DMan laughing at “The Andy Griffith Show” that comes on after the news. Thank God, he doesn't know I keeled over into the sink. I slowly un-jackknifed myself, the half-eaten sandwich still in my fist, my back stiff from being bent over. The chaw of peanut butter had grown to the size of a lime – but I hadn't swallowed! I tried to spit, then flick it out with my tongue. Nothing happened. It was stuck. Finally I had to rake two fingers along the inside of my cheek to extricate the gluey glob. My jeans had trapped the tinkle so I wasn't standing in a puddle, but by now the wetness was cold. Shivery cold.

   As quietly as I could with soaked pant legs rubbing together, I slipped through the sitting room and into the bathroom. DMan didn't notice, still engrossed in Mayberry antics in the living room. Dear Lord, I was a fright: hair plastered with sweat back from my face, showcasing a red checker-boarded forehead the spitting image of the sink mat; mascara smeared into raccoon eyes; sweat rings surrounding my armpits; and a dark rainbow of urine on my jeans from crotch to calf. After cleaning myself up and hosing down my pants in the shower, I took a long nap, more like a mini-coma, and vowed never to monkey with my plasma routine again. Never.

   So now you understand why I say, “No thanks, I'll pass on passing out.” I don't know about those “asphyxionados,” but I never had a bit of fun doing it. No endorphin high. No giddiness. And I sure as hell never got an orgasm out of the deal.