Then I went out and robbed an old lady

Yesterday I stood at my fridge, facing a dilemma, and I thought to myself ‘what would a drug addict do’?

Now, 9 times out of 10 this is NOT the way to solve a problem, (kids – just say no etc.) but this time it happened to be just the thing. It was, in fact, sheer brilliance on my part.

You see I had, well, how do I put this? I had accidentally taken some drugs. About an hour and a half before I was due at work.

Put the phone down, Mum, I assure you that when I say I had accidentally taken ‘some drugs’ I mean I had accidentally taken a valium after forgetting I had (for reasons which require a long and dull explanation) stored them in an old thyroxine bottle. It was the morning and I had come to the fridge, only half awake, to take my daily dose of thyroxine. Having moronically put the valium-filled thyroxine bottle in the fridge along with the genuine thyroxine-filled specimens I grabbed the wrong bottle, chomped the wrong pill and realised, as the little beggar, slid down my throat, just what I had done.

Again: due in work in 90 minutes, give or take.

Generally speaking valium does not, tragically, knock me out but it does induce sleepiness and, sometimes, mild silliness. Not ideal while you’re still swimming (read: sinking) in a new job and even less ideal when you’re already knackered from having a puny six hours sleep the night before… and the night before that.

But I’d taken this stupid tablet and no way was I putting my fist down my throat to bring it up again, even if I thought it would work. Dilemma.

And that’s when the moment of genius struck, perhaps even as I gazed at the picture of Pete Doherty affixed to my fridge door - ‘what would a drug addict do?’. It was so obvious: Take. More. Drugs.

It’s all about physics really. For every action there must be an equal or opposite reaction. Or maybe it’s a bit more like that episode of The Simpsons where Homer is a truckie and, having accidentally takes too many stay-awake pills, has to dope himself up with sleeping tablets, then more of the other and so on with mildly hilarious consequence. Isaac Newton or Matt Groening – they were both well on the money.

Two No-Doze and one double-shot mocha from the hottie still working it at Tarts later and I was perky as a lamb. Problem solvered.

And, my friends, I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from this example of the triumph of counter-intuitive thinking . That sometimes what seems to be the right thing to do isn’t while, at other times, what seems like the wrong thing can be exactly what you need to do.

The bitch is, of course, that nobody tells you which is which before you do it. Because nobody else knows either.

So, for instance, because I spend way too much money on books you might think that the delicious new purchase sitting on my coffee table should be classified as ‘a mistake’. You might even call me a fool for buying it hours after I checked my bank balance and vowed to change my ways.But you’d be wrong, wrong, wrong. Because, again, this is a case where the course of action that seems completely mental is in fact completely right-on.

How, you ask?

Well it’s complicated and, honestly, I’d love to explain it to you in detail but I’m afraid I’ve just helped myself to the pills in the fridge and I…zzzzz….