Tuesday, March 14, 2006

The Pill of Eating and Forgetting

The sleep drug Ambien has created a class of ravenous zombies. Apparently they sleepwalk to the kitchen, consume thousands of calories, and stumble back to bed. In the morning, the somnophages have no memory of their eating.

Judie Evans said she began taking Ambien while recovering from back surgery. At the time, she was in a full body cast and needed assistance to get out of bed. During this time, Ms. Evans, who is 59 and lives alone, began to notice that food was missing from her refrigerator. She accused two nursing aides who were caring for her of stealing food. It was not until her son came to spend several nights that Ms. Evans said she realized that despite the body cast, she was getting up to eat while she was asleep. "During the day, I couldn't even make it to the bathroom by myself," Ms. Evans said. The first night her son was there, he found her standing in the kitchen, body cast and all, frying bacon and eggs. The next night he found her eating a sandwich, Ms. Evans said, and sent her back to bed.

Unconscious gluttony: American consumers at their best!

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Captain Ahab needs to lay off the Ambien.

8:36 PM  
Blogger Pooja said...

I was going to use "Ahab" as a verb-- as in "went Ahab on the Doritos"-- but realized it's not in the general lexicon.

9:28 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home