John
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Yes, all the time. I used to use Constant Comment loose tea,
but it turns out that it is worth the expense to get the stuff in
bags. The people at Mass General were starting to look at me funny
when I would stop by every other day complaining about my leg (or
sometimes even brain) getting numb. The first time they operated
and removed a clump of tea, they gave me a look that would wilt a
watermelon.
Frankly, this is only a desperation maneuver. Iced tea got me
through topology and quantum mechanics at the same time, but my
hands didn't stop shaking for about three months after I was done
with that term. I also spent a lot of time in the emergency room
of Mass General, and on the whole, I probably lost 20% of my
"extra" time in the hospital. However, I did graduate.
There are several tips about how much sugar to add to avoid
glucose shock, and other random details that I don't have time to
type in now. Check with me in person for the details.
Even now, I can't watch those Lipton iced tea commercials
without getting a case of the shivers.
Cheers,
Mike
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Well, here goes the canonical ice tea story. Amazingly
enough, it is even true. Furthermore Bill, I think that you are an
unwitting participant in it. Anyway, here goes:
First, the cast of characters:
Michael Kazar: The drug addict himself.
Alanna Connors: The addict's neighbor
Carol Novitsky: A neighbor from further down the hall.
Charles Hoffman: A naive frosh
The SIPB: A bunch of rumor mongers
Well, at some point during the summer before my senior year,
Carol stopped by to rave about some weird new tea that she had
tried that was quite high in caffeine. I have the distinct
impression it was more caffeine than anything else, as a matter of
fact. She said that the stuff would wake her up faster than
anything she had ever tried. It was called Morning Thunder Tea.
I have seen it in the supermarket even here in Pittsburgh.
I had at the time been using iced tea as my favorite source of
caffeine, since it was also summertime and I have found that iced
tea is also an excellent coolant. So when Carol mentioned that she
found that Morning Thunder was excellent stuff, I decided to spin
a tale. I said that no doubt Morning Thunder was excellent stuff
and was virtually pure caffeine, but her problem was that she was
taking it ORALLY. This was of course dilluting the stuff terribly.
What I did, I told her, was to simply take this iced tea that I
had, and shoot it up directly. Although it was quite hard on the
system, it had the advantage that you could literally go for days
after such a shot. It required a fair amount of sugar too, to get
the right effect, since the sugar would of course help keep your
blood sugar level high. Lastly, it is sometimes necessary to keep
a continual flow of the stuff in, and so you would take the gallon
jug of iced tea and mount it upside down above your head and keep
the stuff flowing right into a vein. This could enable you to keep
going for days on end without any problems, but when you finally
cut off, you would crash like nobody's business.
Well, I thought that this was a perfectly worthless story, but
Carol was basically eating it up. One can basically tell if one is
being believed or not, and although skeptical, what I mostly saw on
her face was shock, since this was clearly a pretty crazy thing to
do, even by our hall's standards. "Unfortunately" Alanna was also
in the room and she thought this was quite funny. Quite funny
indeed is an understatement, she actually fell on the floor
laughing. This gave it away to Carol, who took one look at Alanna
on the floor and decided this was ridiculous.
I had, at this point stopped by the SIPB and related the above
story. I do not know exactly to whom I did so, but that doesn't
really matter. It included Dan Weinreb, I believe, or that is how
I have come to know the rest of this, though the exact names of the
people in the SIPB involved I only know from hearsay. The concept
is that several months after the above story occurred, some folks
on my hall (including Charles Hoffman) were eating at Colleen's.
As usual, there were also several people from the SIPB there. I
was not one of them. As I heard it later, Moon or someone was
griping about the cold tea they had served, mumbling something
about iced tea. Then Dan said that maybe they should "shoot it
like Kazar". The folks at the nearby table from my hall heard
this, and amazingly enough said "maybe it really happened".
Later that evening, Hoffman came back to the hall and asked me
about this story: Did I really shoot iced tea? Alanna was around
again, but she headed straight for her room to avoid cracking up
again. I was on my own. Doing my best to keep a straight face, I
explained how I had given it up now since it was so incredibly
damaging to the body, but that it sure did work like a charm when
things were really desperate. I recommended that they not use
loose tea, since it could cause massive blood clots, and that there
were certain things to do with the composition of the stuff that
were just to complex to explain, so that they should check with me
before trying it out. It is not clear that he believed me. He was
with someone else at the time, and I seem to recall one of them was
sure that I was full of shit and the other was not exactly sure,
and seemed to be wondering if indeed "that could explain it".
That's basically the story. It no doubt is somewhat twisted
with time, but I still remember the looks on the people's faces, or
at least I think I do.
Hoffman is probably able to tell part of it, and Carol
probably knows about half of it too (though the other half).
Perhaps Wechsler does too, I am not sure.
Wechsler only knows of this tale 1.5th hand. He was in his
room (next door on the other side from Alanna) and heard Ms.
Connors lose it completely (a sound not unlike a Bawden cackle
played at double speed) and got the rest of the story later.