Quiche Lorraine

An Ambien Story

For the bulk of my 20s, I was in the USAF and stationed at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas. At one point I was living in a three-bedroom apartment off-base with two roommates who also became good friends. As I’ve detailed before, getting prescription medication while working in a military hospital was dangerously easy. I don’t recall now what was going on in my life at that time, but I was having difficulty sleeping. I told a doctor friend of mine about it and he prescribed me the sleep aid, Ambien.

Not being familiar with the medication or in possession of any form of serviceable forethought, I decided I would begin making dinner - a basic bachelor spaghetti, pop an Ambien, finish dinner, and go to sleep. I would like to reiterate at this point that I was in my mid-20s. So I put on a pot of water, got out my jarred sauce & dried pasta, then took a pill and proceeded to wait for a rolling boil. That is the last thing I remember.

My male roommate was out of town, but the next morning I was somewhat rudely awakened by the female one. Asking, quite tersely, “What the hell happened last night?”

I responded groggily, “What? What happened last night? Did we……”

“No asshole, WE didn’t do anything. YOU left a pot of pasta boiling on the stove and threw all of the freezer food in the trash. Now there’s nothing but quiches in there. You DICK!”

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you mean what am I talking about? Come to the kitchen…..DICK!”

Thoroughly confused but now very awake, I got up, quickly dressed, and walked out to the kitchen where my state of confusion intensified. Before me, from left to right, was my sour-faced roommate. One hand placed firmly on a cocked hip, the other extended menacingly towards a trashcan brimmed with unopened Marie Calendar’s boxes, a leaking Ben & Jerry’s container, and a set of empty icecube trays. In the sink, a charred pot filled with soapy water. And finally, next to that, the refrigerator. The freezer door ajar to reveal several stacks of individual-sized boxes of Nancy’s Quiche Lorraine. Situated neatly from top to bottom, back to front, filling the freezer to capacity with barely 1/4 inch of room on all sides. It was actually kind of impressive.

She, however, was wildly unimpressed. I began to loosely piece the events of the evening together, albeit through the haze of her reasonably volumed but agitated auditory assault. The fact that I adored those quiches was a critical component. And after some heated forensicing that gave way to relieved chuckling, we were able to put the rest of the puzzle together.

Sometime after taking the Ambien, I placed the pasta in the pot, got dressed (we’re assuming since it didn’t make the news), grabbed my keys and wallet, and made for the grocery store. I then purchased somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 Nancy’s Quiche Lorraine boxes, upon later inspection found to be interspersed with a few boxes of Florentine. My guess is that I had already cleared them out of Lorraine, but the cart still felt a little light. Got home, unceremoniously emptied the freezer contents into the trashcan, and meticulously stacked my bounty of breakfast goodness within the newly vacated space. Then retired for the evening. I recall absolutely none of this. It turns out there’s a somewhat rare but well-documented side effect of Ambien called anterograde amnesia. Lucky me.

Fortuitously, she got home just as the boiling water had evaporated and the pasta was starting to burn. Rescued the pot to the sink, almost tripping on a receptacle overflowing with what was to be her dinners for the week. And me nowhere in sight. What I wouldn’t give for video of this. She attempted to wake me but only received what she construed to be drunken mutterings. Then retreated to the kitchen, made herself a recently discarded, partially thawed meal, and through frustration somehow got herself to sleep.

To this day I consider myself lucky that she didn’t dump water on me. Or better yet, boxes of frozen quiche as an act of vengeance, but also in an attempt to salvage some of her freezer items. The angel. Also, I never took Ambien again.