Our passage way was littered with bags as we dragged them to the Combie, we were heading out for a three week holiday. Our dog Jet couldn’t join us this time round he was getting too old for those long journeys. So I arranged a house sitter. A week before the holiday I met with the vet and explained our darling Jet barked if we left the house. So she gave me the perfect solution. (I had visions of our neighbors setting the house alight while we were gone). So when the house sitter arrived I left instructions to give him a half a pill in the mornings.

Because we’d never doped our dog up before I thought it was a good idea to try a little half pill myself. I mean just to see how, if anything, what the effect might be on our aging darling. Jet was was half my size what could half a pill do to me. So once we’d settled in and hit the road with my husband at the wheel I slipped the little half pill down my throat (Crazy yes, stupid – totally). Half and hour later I was yawning. “wow tired already” pipped up my then husband. Soon I found myself struggling to stay awake and half sliding off my seat. “I’m just going to have a little lie down” I said yawning again. My daughter didn’t miss a beat, “mom you come and lie in the back” she loved sitting up front with her dad.

That innocent little half pill knocked me sideways, an hour later I heard the man say through the fog “Gueeze but you tired” I must have been snoring. I opened my mouth to say something and all I could feel was a thick tongue and some left over drool. I managed to slur something like ” I duuunth knowwwa” Tell him I took the dogs sleeping pill? The journey was gonna take three hours. It would have been three hours of “you did what? that was stupid of you”, over and over again. Our relationship was already handing on a thin nylon thread. Yes it was totally stupid, utterly crazy and completely irresponsible, but there it was done, and couldn’t be undone.. I snored through the rest of the journey safe in the knowledge that our house would be intact when I got back, my dog well rested and the neighbors left in peace. My daughter enjoyed her front row seat, we had a wonderful holiday and I will never again try out even a half a tablet not designed for human consumption.