Entry Four: Normalcy

Another day another dollar. I've now got a total of 900 dollars in the bank and that’s almost my rent payment. Well, it’s not in my bank because I think Dr. Nelson has all of our money, but I got $900 nonetheless and that’s pretty kick ass, man.

There wasn’t any super-exciting shit today. No torturous screaming or psychedelic weirdness to report and there is still thirteen of us in here. We went through the whole strap-in process again this morning and it was just as nerve wracking as yesterday, but thankfully we all just kind of relaxed after taking the pill. A few people fell asleep and I just thought about life, money and how I was going to get the card games going later on so I could make some extra bank. Unfortunately, after our dinner tonight, fuck I shouldn’t call it dinner… after the protein shakes tonight, I asked Dr. Nelson about conducting a buy-in card game, but the old bastard shot me down.

“It’s perfectly acceptable for you to run a friendly competition, Jack, but under no circumstances is anyone to wager any money or conduct any form of system by which wagering of monies would take place,” he said.

“Why the fuck not?” I asked like a belligerent asshole.

Dr. Nelson’s eyes dulled-out in boredom and he sighed his raunchy coffee breath in my face, “Did you not read the fine print of the contract you signed?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I walked away like a pissed-off little fat kid who didn’t get his dad to buy him a candy bar. No, I didn’t fucking read the fine fucking print! It was kind of a hard chop in the balls because I know I could have made a lot of bread from these guys. What can you do though right? It’s their lab and their rules. I’m just here to raise the cash to pay the bills, so I don’t want to get thrown out the front door for any reason.

I’m still not feeling any effects from the pills, but they haven’t kicked me out yet, so that makes me happy. If I can get just a week in, I’ll be straight.        

Today, I took a lot of time to talk to some of the other people and tried to get a feel for who might be on the drug. Every person I can rule out gives hope to the idea of me not being in the control group. I’m pretty familiar with a few of them now. I know that you Doctors (because I know you read these entries) want the inside scoop on some of these people, so I’ll explain them briefly.

Randy: I already mentioned him the last time I wrote in here. He’s unemployed, loves his kids and needs money from this so he can placate the wife and have a cushion while he looks for work. He told me that no school system will hire him. I think he’s lucky that he didn’t get thrown into jail for slapping a minor, but apparently, the faculty didn’t want the embarrassment of having to confess that bullying runs rampant in the school. Randy talks to me about starting his own cleaning business and wants to know if I’d be interested. I had to turn that shit down pretty quick. No offense Randy, but I ain’t no fucking maid. Randy’s a good guy though. He’s kind of feminine in a few ways I’ve noticed, especially the way he bitches all the time about the stupidest shit. He likes to occasionally throw hissy fits about the lack of food. Today for dinner they added fresh fruit to go along with the protein drinks and you’d think he’d be happy. Instead, he just whines that we’ve all been lied to and the food standards were detrimental to the wellness of all us subjects blah blah blah. Shut the hell up man, we’re making $300 a day, remember? He’s also now whining about a headache and he thinks is because he’s not getting enough salt, but I’m sure one of the pills we get in the morning with breakfast is, in fact, a salt pill. I can’t really tell if Randy is on the 35C, but the headache may be an indicator that something is happening, or it’s just a head cold. I told him to stop whining and ask Dr. Nelson to check him out, but he doesn’t want to do that. Oh well, I tried.

Lynette: Lynette is a 40-year-old black woman from Dorchester. She’s about as sweet and kind as they come. She’s got three kids at home and a deadbeat husband who abandoned them for some tramp in southern Georgia. Well, that’s not fair to say, I guess. I don’t know if the woman is truly a tramp or if he just found her on some E-harmony site and didn’t bother to tell her he was married. What a fucking asshole that guy is. If I had a kind-hearted woman like Lynette, I'd never leave her. She’s not too bad looking either, but you can see the sadness in her eyes and overall grayish tone of her aura. Jesus, did I just write that? Anyway, I like her a lot. She’s one of those people that likes to listen, and she REALLY pays attention if you know what I mean. I’ve told her some of my problems and joke with her; she’s a blast. One thing that we have in common is that we both dropped out of high school. Lynette dropped out her sophomore year right when she’d turned 16. Unfortunately, she ended up getting pregnant and that was that. Once she gave birth to her daughter, she thereafter took care of the baby and cleaned the apartment pretty much full time while that asshole worked full time. She has three total kids at this point; her oldest being Kelly, who’s 22, and then there’s 13-year-old Roy and nine-year-old Beth. Right now, Kelly is watching the kids so that Lynette can be here. I hope she can stay awhile, but so far, I can’t discern any strange attitude changes, so she might be in the placebo group too.

Jeffrey: He’s a 25 year old college drop out. He’s got long brown hair and green eyes. He’s about as mellow as a stuffed teddy bear, I guess because he loves to smoke the ganja, or at least he used to before the experiment. He constantly brags about the amazing heights of his weed induced highs.  He said he’s here to save money so he can move to Colorado, or “weed heaven,” as he puts it.  Some of the fucked up shit he’s done is pretty impressive, he’s got stories man. I asked him what he learned in college and he said the biggest thing he figured out is that “friends last about as long as a bag of grass.” He doesn’t actually remember what his major was, but he’s for damn sure he didn’t make it out of his dorm room more than twice a week. Something about the magic triangle… KFC, Netflix and weed. Jeff is kind of a silly guy, and not exactly a bright kid, but what’s cool about him is that he knows it. He doesn’t have that conceited attitude that most people carry out of college. Of course, he didn’t graduate college, so, that’s probably why. He’s also the only other person I’ve talked to that had to quit smoking cigarettes for this trial, which is nice. We need to support each other because it’s not fucking easy. Although it is getting easier. If the formula is designed to make us smarter in any way, then it would have to work overtime to boost Jeff. If he’s not any smarter by Friday, then I’ll know he’s placebo too.

Emily: Remember how I said I like Jeff because he isn’t a conceited prick? Well, meet Emily, 24 years old and a total pompous fucking bitch. She has super wealthy parents which instantly made me wonder why the fuck she is even here. She goes on and on, about how she’s better than everyone else, and that we’re all just a horde of losers who are here because we need the money. It turns out, her parents left her a trust fund she can’t get to until she’s 25 and then they totally disowned her. I guess she brought a lot of shame to the family, doesn’t surprise me in the least by the way she runs her mouth. Nobody in here seems to like her that much. Except for Randy. Randy likes her flare of bitchery because he’s got a little of the same drama queen blood going in his veins too. They like to get together and bitch about the food, lodging and talk shit about people. He also thinks she’s pretty hot, which I don’t argue with, and he suggested to me that what happens in the lab, stays in the lab.

I personally detest the damn girl, even though she’s good looking and has a smoking body, her shitty personality ruins it. Now… if we could get Lynette’s awesome attitude into Emily’s body, that’d be one fucking amazing woman. I’m pretty sure If I ever saw Emily at a nightclub, I would have ended up blowing all the money in my wallet to feed her drinks, and she probably would have still shot me down. She’s one of those girls... “Oh, thanks for the drinks, bye-bye loser!” Sigh. I was going to make a valiant effort to charm her this week until she unbolted her talk hole. She speaks with this snobby twang that goes, “oh ma gawd, like, the shake is sooo grrrross, is it even vegan?” That sort of shit, like Hilary from Fresh Prince of Bel Air. She is so friggin’ superficial and phony man… makes me cringe. I asked her why she was here, and her reasoning is that it’s a mind experiment, and she hopes to gain super intelligence like LUCY, that movie with Scarlett Johansson. So far, doesn’t seem likely for her. No one here has reported anything different other than a headache, so I’m almost positive she’s not on the drug. Just a feeling.

That does get me thinking about Randy’s headache though. He and her talk constantly, and her way of expression is really grating on the nerves. So, if Randy has a headache and her voice grates the nerves… is she causing Randy’s headache? I might advise Randy to cease speaking with her to see if that alleviates the head pain. Not sure he won’t take offense to that though, they’re pals after all.

Last for today, I’ll talk about Ben. Ben seems okay. He’s a quiet guy, but he’s damn funny when you talk to him one on one. He’s a short, mousy, red-haired fella with freckles and looks like he’s fourteen years old. He has a good sense of humor and as far as I can tell doesn’t think too highly of himself like the bitch mentioned above. Ben got out of high school, took out some college loans to study online, and then ended up using the money to fly to Vegas. I asked him why he went to Vegas and he asked me “Why did the chicken cross the road?” to which I replied, “To get laid?” We both laughed, but he said, “The chicken wanted to be a stand-up comedian.” The only problem was, Ben’s got super stage fright and then he also, apparently, doesn’t handle rejection too well. The audience out there ultimately crushed his dream and made him feel like total shit. After about five months, he moved back and unfortunately, flunked out of his online classes and now he owes ten grand in student loans. So, he’s here to try and pay for that. I hope it works out for him. As for is he on the sauce? I can’t tell. Not yet anyway.

There are others obviously, but I’m getting kind of tired right now, so I’ll give you guys the lowdown tomorrow night. I have to go take a shower before I head to bed. By the way doctors… you all need to give us more than five minutes of shower time!

What the fuck is that?

-Jack

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