7:16 p.m. | 2002-08-15 Fibro Fog. The chronic pain condition I suffer from is fibromyalgia. Pain is but one of many, many symptoms; there are hundreds of others that are bizarre, annoying and/or frightening. One annoying symptom is cognitive blinks � temporary impairment of cognitive abilities. Among sufferers of fibromyalgia (fibromites), it�s known as fibro fog. It causes you to do and say some really silly things. I no longer get too embarrassed about it as it�s just gonna happen � not much I can do about it. Except laugh. What follows is an incident which occurred due to The Fog. I came home from work one day completely exhausted so I went to bed. I fell into a very deep and welcomed sleep. When I awoke it was 6:30am. Oh my god! Time to get up and get ready for work! I couldn�t believe how rested and refreshed I felt. (Normally, I wake up feeling like I�ve been stampeded by a herd of elephants.) I got up and proceeded to get ready for work. By 7:30am, I was ready to head out. I wanted to stop by McDonald�s to get breakfast before going in to work. (My weight had plummeted to 98lbs which is just too low for me.) So I got in my car and headed to ole Mickey Dee�s. I whipped into the drive-thru, pulled up to the speaker and proceeded to order. (Speaker:) Welcome to McDonald�s. May I take your order? (CI:) Yes, I�d like a sausage McMuffin meal deal with a small orange juice instead of coffee. (Speaker:) Uh, we�re not serving that right now. (CI:) What? It�s 7:30 right? Are you out of them? (Speaker:) Yes, it�s 7:30 but we�re not serving breakfast right now. Would you like a burger? (CI:) No, I don�t want a burger. I want a sausage McMuffin and you usually serve breakfast until 10:30. It�s only 7:30. (Speaker:) It is 7:30 and we�re not serving breakfast now. (Sounding completely exasperated.) (CI:) I don�t understand. (Speaker:) Would you like to speak to the manager? (CI:) Sure. (Man, what is wrong with these people? I�m not speaking in Latin or anything. Geesh.) (Manager:) What seems to be the problem ma�am? (CI:) I would like to order a sausage McMuffin meal deal but she told me you�re not serving breakfast right now. (Manager:) That�s right. We�re not serving breakfast right now. (CI:) But it�s only 7:30. (Manager:) It�s 7:30 at NIGHT ma�am. (CI:) Oh. Well then, nevermind. And I drove off. And busted up for a good 5 minutes! I mean, you gotta agree with me that THAT was FUNNY! I�m sure they were saying: �What a froot loop! Why do all the crackheads have to come here? Why can�t they go to Burger King? God, what an idiot!� I have to say they handled that very gracefully, and actually, very professionally. I left myself wide open to quickly become major fodder for the fast food folks. Then, as I was driving back home, I suddenly felt completely exhausted. I realized I had come home and had myself a very refreshing 30-minute nap. And there I was, all showered and dressed only to go home for the evening. Again. (It was during the summer, so the sun was still shining brightly. Obviously, if it had been dark outside, I would have realized very quickly that it was 7:30pm. I don�t try to explain my bizarre actions to strangers anymore because, in doing so, I usually just make it worse. I just let them wonder what THAT was all about. That�s why I�m quite confident that there are a lot of people walking around out there who think I�m bonkers, or on drugs, or just really, really stupid. That�s okay with me. It makes the world more interesting for everyone involved. your thoughts? seed flower