Nyquil for the Soul

by A. E. O'Neill

[Originally published November 5, 1999]

When I was a kid, I used to look forward to those rare days when I would find myself home sick with the flu, shut in for the day and obligated to relax and be pampered until I got well. When good fortune struck on those dark winter mornings, I would set up camp on the couch, bundled in layers of pajamas and blankets, propped up by pillows and surrounded by the Sick Day essentials; remote control and cereal bowl.

The day that followed was inevitably filled with all the life-affirming nutrients and nuggets of hearty goodness necessary to nurse me back to school-readiness in one day; The Price is Right, Gilligan's Island, I Dream of Jeanie and infomercials about food dehydrators and Ginsu knives.

I recently suffered a similar fate, awakening with the early symptoms of urban typhoid; the executive-strength flu that races through the AC ducts of every North American office building from October through April, spreading biotic mayhem and taking no prisoners. Coughing and aching, with the long day ahead of me, I clutched the covers under my chin and settled in for a day of TV therapy, only to discover, before I could enjoy the healing spectacle of the Showcase Showdown, that the world was not going to be escaped that easily.

A media-addict, no matter what the medicine, I consumed hour after hour of Seattle news channels documenting a real-life drama as it unfolded; a shipyard shooting in the neighborhood where I lived for three winters, enjoying my share of youthful sick days.

I watched as helicopter cameras covered the tree-shrouded streets and canine squads circled block after block of blackberry bush-fenced yards.

I tried to catch a glimpse of the one-story 30's era house I once called home, or the bright blue two-story house with the tall fence in which my friend had lived, where I used to wait on the sidewalk so we could walk to school together. And there was the school, a place where I had harbored my own adolescent revenge fantasies ten years before it was cool, being evacuated by armed police.

It's funny how more media doesn't always give you more options — the same way more technology doesn't necessarily bring more civilization. The internet was buzzing with the news as quickly as the television. You can read all that I watched — in considerably less time — at www.msnbc.com/news.

With the advent of murderous rampage timelines, you can connect the dots of this year's armed tragedies to date, from Salt Lake City in January through Honolulu, just one day before my own neighborhood of Wallingford in Seattle. Steering away from the news sites was no help. The front page story on one of my favorite escapes was an interview with a video game designer; all about the connection of real life carnage to his creations.

The subject is an old one and I made my conclusions a long time ago, but the venom that the subject conjures, especially after an incident like the one in Seattle, is remarkable to me. People want scapegoats with the same passionate intensity that they want the latest sequel to Redneck Rampage. The thing is, there are no answers, no one is to blame and, in the end, it's all just good news or bad news.

The forbidden fruit — knowledge, information — was original sin. So in this, the information age, why does everyone expect to feel so damned good?

We all know "ignorance is bliss." A cliché becomes a cliché because it contains a grain of truth. Who could have doubted that more knowledge would make us more jaded and cynical? That the same technology that makes us sharper shooters would make us mistrustful and paranoid, depressed and impotent?

Well, after a day of wallowing in contagious misery, I'm desensitized all over again and ready to get some great beauty and fashion tips from elle.com, order some cold medicine and kleenex from drugstore.com and plan a tropical vacation that will make me forget all my troubles — until next winter!