Dear Sleepy-Type Cold Medicine,
I just took you, so you’ll pardon the formality of this letter, since we’re already more intimate than I make us out to be. But I wanted to ask you a favor. The begging of favors requires politeness and politeness requires a nice letter. You know how it is.
I’m not much of a drug person. (Sorry. No offense. But I should be honest. I almost didn’t take you home with me today. Goodness, this is no way to get on your good side, is it? Well, please bear with me a moment more…) You see, a little goes a long way (with drug-type things, that is), so I don’t often need much.
However, this awful cold I have has been torturing me for the last few days. Last night, I tossed and turned and got barely enough sleep to get me through the day. So, of course, I turned to you.
Your generic label, your “mixed berry” flavoring, your anti-histamine prowess, your promises of sound sleeps and cough respites…… Well, what girl couldn’t resist! You had me at “marked drowsiness may occur.” Ah, the sweet song of the siren! When I got you home and ripped off your protective seal, I noticed a little something on your back that I hadn’t seen at the drugstore. There it was, in black and white:
May cause excitability–especially in children.
Oh, no! Dreadful warning! I’ve been down that road before, handsome stranger. And it wasn’t pretty. So this brings us to that favor I was mentioning earlier on. Oh, sweet prince, please be gracious and merciful and grant me drowsiness with absolutely no excitability whatsoever! I beseech thee!
It is getting late, so I shall spare you any more of my verbosity. Besides, it’s been an hour since I had you and frankly, this laptop is starting to behave like heavy machinery.
I’d like to thank you in advance for being kind.
Sincerely,
Amanda
PS: Don’t take this the wrong way, but you didn’t taste anything like mixed berries. I hope this was your one and only deception.