The Miracle Vitamin C Binge

There are a few times in my life where I've gotten sick at extremely inconvenient times.

I got sick the day before the seventh Harry Potter book came out. Like, this was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, and Viola was facilitating a costumed get-together to go to the midnight release, and it was going to be really awesome, and I had a cold. In July. Who gets a cold in July?!

It was a real humdinger, too. I was feverish, tired, and slightly delusional. My nose was alternately stuffy and runny, and I had no motivation to do anything but lie in bed.

At first, I tried to ignore this cold. Surprisingly, this approach did not make the ailment disappear, so I decided I was going to flush it out with Vitamin C!

Now, some people like citrus tastes. I'm not one of those people. I don't like oranges and especially I don't like orange juice. But that didn't stop me from drinking two pitchers of orange juice and one pitcher of grape juice over a period of ten hours.

No joke. I probably had enough Vitamin C coursing through my body to fight off scurvy.

The next day, I was sniffly, but feeling well enough to hang out at Barnes and Noble until after midnight and then stay up reading until 5:00 am.

And thus I was convinced of the effectiveness of the Miracle Vitamin C Binge. I was convinced so much, in fact, that when I came down with a cold in Italy, I decided to replicate the treatment in true European fashion.

The European equivalent of orange juice, I determined, is carrot-orange juice, which is the only kind of orange juice I find appealing. And the European equivalent of grape juice is wine, which I do not drink. So I consumed vast quantities of carrot-orange juice and hoped that would do the trick.

"Does that really work?" one of my trip roommates asked.

"Sure," I said. My roommate offered to obtain some straight Vitamin C to supplement the carrot-orange juice. I dissolved said Vitamin C in water. It tasted like minerals and carbonation.

Within a matter of hours, I went from almost passing out in Milan to walking up and down six flights of stairs several times a day in Rio Maggiore. I did wind up with a sinus infection that accompanied me back to the States, but by and large my health vastly improved.

Yesterday, I woke up and realized I was ill.

"Nope, no can do," I said to myself. "I have too much stuff happening this weekend to be sick!"

I grabbed a can of frozen orange juice and dumped it in a mug with an inch or two of water. An hour or so later, I took my first sip.

News flash: Thawing, almost-pure orange juice concentrate is not a delicacy.

"Well," I said, "this is more disgusting than most things."

I did drink the entire mug. But after that, I decided I wanted to drink egg drop soup instead.

Said egg drop soup had to be bought from a Chinese food establishment. Leaving the house was something I had zero percent desire to do. So I decided to order the egg drop soup in. But I had to order at least $20 worth of food. So I bought three dishes plus egg drop soup and then when the food came instead of just drinking the soup well I ended up drinking the soup plus eating a plateful of rice, shrimp, and chicken.

"Oh," I realized after eating. "This was not a good idea." If anything, I felt quite a bit sicker. I went to bed with the expectation that I'd likely be worse in the morning.

But when I woke up, I was almost completely better.

Miracle Chinese Food Binge? I'm a fan.