Knackered’s Stuck in the Middle with Benzos

   Hey there, Knackered here.  In 1989, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards pounded out the hit song, “Rock and a Hard Place” as part of a new album called “Steel Wheels.” Country singer, Billy Zimmerman, did his own version with different lyrics twenty years later.  Old time rockers will remember the lyrics from the Stones the best: “We’re stuck between a rock and a hard place/ Between a rock and a hard place/ You’d better stop (and) put on a kind face.”    

   We all have been in this predicament at some point.  It’s that decision that asks us to decide between two alternatives, neither of which is something desirable. They’re just aren’t any good choices to make.

  I found myself right there yesterday afternoon when I went in to get my latest ‘refresher dose’ of Covid juice.  I thought about it for awhile.  With the last Benzo taper still just out of the starting blocks and the forecast of getting sick from the shot, I pulled up my sleeve and let them poke me.

   My wife and I still have pretty strict rules around the whole Covid thing.  It seems like we’re still among the very few who mask up in public places.  If we’re having company over, we insist they take a test before and text us the results before showing up on the doorstep. It’s on the honor system.  I don’t think we’re really that popular,  but the prospect of coming down with the stuff on top of the Benzos is unthinkable at this point.

  Even though the pandemic has long since been considered ‘over’ not a week goes by when someone we know doesn’t come down with it  (Covid that is).  And if it’s not Covid, it’s RSV, Shingles, you name it, they’ve got it.  And we don’t really want any part of it.

   So today, when I woke up, I realized that I was totally wiped.  It reminded me of those early days in my taper when the only tool required was a chopping block (actually the pill cutter) and my provider was asking me to cut ten mgs a month.  I always dreaded getting the next prescription. Lord only knew what was going to be on it.

   So today, I’ve not been able to conjure up anything close to a ‘smile face’,  but I did stop… just about everything.  I spent all morning in bed, and after writing this, I think I shall return.

   With an upcoming summer family reunion waiting in the wings, I really didn’t have a choice at all.  Getting out and climbing in the car is going to be tough. The six hour car and ferry ride that follows is ‘heavy on my mind’ (Andra Day & Wale).  But in the end, needs must when the devil drives.