Inducing Fake Morning Sickness to Avoid the Real Thing

Apparently, if pregnancy won't make you nauseous, the pill made to prevent it will. Be-ee-ay-utiful.

We can all probably guess how this all began ("When a mummy and a daddy decide they can tolerate each other long enough to not stab each other in the face..."), so let's skip straight to the little misadventure that followed the... um, 'action'.

As a result of Keenan's paranoia and prompting - I could have used the double entendre 'prodding', but I thought that would be in poor taste -, I promised that I would take a morning after pill as soon as possible just to be on the safe side - and possibly to cork his yap-hole.

Because I believe in doing a little research, despite my severe case of chronic laziness, I decided to look up the phrase 'morning after pill'. I must say Google is a wonderful place, particularly for the confused teen considering emergency contraception. If you were confused about whether use of the pill will condemn you to Hell for all eternity, this website will more or less confirm your damnation for murder of innocent life: http://www.morningafterpill.org/

What is this, pro-life activists pretending to be scientists and physicians by describing the pill as a way a woman acts to, and I quote, "kill her preborn child"? Sure, that's an unbias statement based purely on "the whole truth and nothing but the truth". [/sarcasm] I've always been a pro-choice person, but had I previously held any sense of apprehension regarding use of the morning after pill, this site has more or less encouraged me that I should be take the pill, if for no other reason than just in pure spite of them. Thank you morningafterpill.com. Maybe I should write the site a series of appreciative emails to express the insight I've received from their backfired preaching.

So, moving on from my cynicism regarding the aforementioned website, fast forward to this morning:

Do you suppose it was by pure coincidence that the little chemist I went to was within a 5 minute drive radius of 5 local churches, or do you suppose the Christians deliberately planned ahead to try and force as much guilt as possible on young girls attempting to flush out undeveloped fetuses from their uterus?

At some point in their life, every female will experience the awkward sympathy one feels for the 15-year-old check-out chap when you hand him a box of tampons to scan. There's always a slight hesitation from the inexperienced kid, as if he's considering whether or not it's really weird to be handling a box of cotton things girls shove up them to cork bodily fluids. (Yes, I do imagery well.) You almost feel like offering to scan and bag them yourself to save him the trouble.

Now apply that same awkward sympathy to this case:

Upon entering the chemist, I was served by a young male probably in his early twenties. As soon as the words 'morning after pill' escaped my lips, two things happened: The guy's face went three lighter shades of white. And the old woman standing next to me gave me the dirtiest look, as if I'd just suggested that I fucked a diseased goat earlier that morning and was considering firing a shotgun into my cervix to prevent the spread of rabies.

I began to wonder what would have prompted such extreme reactions. Then I looked down and realised that it probably had something to do with looking much like the cross between a character from the vampire rpg Bloodlines and an underage gothic school girl from some sleazy Japanese cartoon. At 11am in broad daylight.

After rummaging out back, the young pharmacist returned with what I had asked for. I felt a little sorry for him as he went through asking the typical, ippy, awkward questions pharmacists are supposed to ask when providing some type of emergency contraception, all the while in a barely audible voice and a sympathetic look in his eyes.

Then came the list of potential side effects: Diarrhea, bleeding, vomitting, dizziness, tiredness and the odd headache here and there. Joy.

He concluded by asking me if I needed to talk about any potentially traumatic or emotional issues with him and offering to give me some sort of counselling. A really nice guy, but overly paranoid.

An upside of today was that, although I had to pay $30 for a pair of tablets each about the size of a pin head, the pharmacist did more or less encourage me to feel free to stuff my face once I got home in order to combat the pill-induced nausea. As if that needed to be said.

So, all in all, what have I learnt thus far?

Not much really...