Earning Brownie Points

In class last Thursday, a friend of mind offered me a brownie. I had just eaten, so I wrapped up the brownie in some tissue and then saved it for later. On the way out of class, I overheard her mention "blue pee" to another classmate, with the words "methylene blue" added somewhere in there, and I knew something was up.

Had I eaten the brownie immediately, I'd have probably fallen for one of the most well-known Chemistry practical jokes. It wasn't that I was naive--rather, I wasn't expecting her to be able to get her hands on the stuff.

So I was confronted with a dilemma: what to do with the brownie? I offered it to some friends, though I told them upfront what would happen so that they would still be my friends later. Oddly enough, all of them declined the brownie. So I brought it to my room, and left it on the counter to stare at for a while.

It was the strangest thing trying to force myself to eat it. I knew that methylene blue was harmless, but... it wasn't meant to be ingested either. It took a day and a half before I finally managed the guts to eat it.

That whole thing was probably related to the reflex manoeuver of not being able to consciously harm yourself. Try sticking your hand in a hot fire. You won't be able to do it. It's not as if your body feels the heat, so the self-protection reflex must reside completely in the brain. The brain recognizes a danger, and then freezes the body. Which is good, really.

I probably should have listened to the reflex, in retrospect. The brownie tasted like detergent. It's not that she was a bad cook; but the reason that it's hidden in brownies is to mask the taste, which really isn't all that good. Brushing my teeth couldn't get rid of the taste. Then, two days later, I fell ill; though it would be difficult to blame that on the brownie. I'm just noticing this downward spiral ever since I've eaten that brownie. I wonder what else she put in there...