Alka Seltzer

During a recent stay at a hotel down south, I awoke suddenly with a
searing pain in my belly that would rivaled John Hurts in ‘Alien’.

My Stomach felt so distended I thought that if I farted my shirt would
deflate like a crumpling tent. Something I ate at the salad bar that
day was not happy with the idea anymore and wanted out. I hovered
around the bath room for a while, flexing and deflexing my stomach
muscles, seating and unseating myself on the toilet and drinking whale
sized mouthfuls of water. None of it worked, so I had to resort to
plan B. Tesco’s.

Off I plodded, forlornly cradling my poor stomach in both hands like I
was expecting to go into labour at any minute, down to the front door
of the hotel, ready to walk the 500 meters or so to the 24 Tesco’s
behemoth of a building that squatted carelessly behind the elegant,
well manicured hotel I was staying in. Right above my head,
I noticed, was a great grey gob of a cloud, just waiting for
me to leave the front door. Sure enough, no more then 10 paces out, it
spat it’s entire load on my head. Frozen ball bearings of ice
bounced of my bare head and smacked into my face and shot down the
collar of my shirt tickling cold fingertips down my back. Ahead, I
could see the Tesco’s building was bathed in calm, warm sunshine, only
another 400 meters away. To my right, cars glinted in their parking
spaces not 20 meters away, dry as a bone. Had i been feeling better, i
would have just ran accross the road to escape it, but no, I was on a
mission to find some alka-seltzer, and I wanted no detours. I put my
head down and stumbled on stubbornly. The cloud followed me all the
way to the front porch, then rattled hailstones across the high roof as if
trying to get in at me as I walked inside. I stood beneath the welcome blast from the
blow heaters over the door for a full five minutes, arching back and
taking the full force of the warm air down across my face and down my
shirt front. An old lady and a security guard were eying me
suspiciously when I finally straightened myself up, smiled
meekly, and ambled off to find the medicines section.

The security guard followed me. Discretely at first, I noticed he
would turn a corner just behind me, then quickly duck back as I turned my head
and caught his eye, all the while with an inane grin on my face as I
tried to convey an air of normality and Lilly-white innocence. To him,
I probably looked like a junkie on the hunt for some handy pocket
sized drugs. When I turned the corner into the medical section, he
lost all sense of subtlety and stood with his arms folded, waiting at the
end of the aisle like a gunslinger calling me out. I grinned back at
him. After fumbled about the shelving until I found what I was looking
for, I triumphantly held it up for him to see, as if assured it would prove
my innocence. He remained motionless, a menacing dark silhouette
against the Pick N’ Mix.

I felt awful. I was having cold sweats by this point, my shirt clung
to my back, the crown of my scalp was turning a steel blue cold as I
fingered and thumbed an Alka-selzer free of its packaging, broke it in
two and forced it through the neck of the bottle of River rock I had
picked up on my way. I screwed the lid back on and headed for the
checkout desk, waiting for it to dissolve. Conscious of the security
guard at my rear, I walked like a broken prisoner, holding the open
packet of Alka-selzer in one hand and the clouding bottle of water in
the other, both out in front of me, as far away from my pockets as I
could hold them. I must have looked like the armed response unit was
waiting for me outside. My stomach gurgled.

I made the checkout and placed my purchases gently on the conveyor
belt, and tried to get my fuzzy head to justify it’s vertical hold. In
retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have tried to negotiate the self
service tills while my own limbs were finding it difficult to serve
themselves. I stood there for a moment, gazing dumbly at the display
in front of me as it politely flashed in large red letters that the item
on the tray had not been recognised. I look down at the bottle of
water and the medicine, then back at the screen. “It’s Andrews” I said,
helpfully. The machine ignored me. Another moment
passed before the man waiting beside me cleared his throat.

“Your leaning on the tray mate”

I looked down. I was propping myself up against the machine without
realising it, and causing the poor thing some confusion. Probably
didn’t have a bar code for Meath men. Flustered, I fed my 50 euro note
into the machine, and smiled apologies to my neighbor. The machine
beeped, and displayed my change in big friendly green letters. I
puffed out my checks and tossed my eyes up to heaven in mock relief to
the man beside me, and waited. Half a minute passed before the man
(probably feeling like a care worker at this point) nudged me and
pointed where my change had been waiting for me in a tray at crotch
level.

“Jesus, I’m sorry mate” I panted. “I’m not feeling the best so the
heads not exactly with it, you know?”

I gathered up my stuff as quickly as I could, and turned to him as I
spoke in hurried apologies, just as I squeezed the water bottle to my
chest to zip up inside my jacket.

Of course, the thing about Alka-selzer is, working properly, it can
cause a very big build up of bubbles. They’re the result of a series
of chemical interactions that speed medicine and relief fast. This is
great news for someone like me, who has a very upset tummy, and wants
instant relief from the build up of acid in his belly. It is, however,
really bad news for someone like, say, the guy standing next to me
when I squeezed the bottle slightly to hard.

There was a moment, as we stood there looking at each other, mouths
open and shirts dripping with fizzing water, where I honestly thought
he was going to hit me.