….it disappears from the store shelves and you can’t find it anywhere.

NOTE: This blog appears below the one the, “previous blog,” I referenced. I finished and published it second but, it was inserted as if it was published first. It’s one of those WordPress quirks I hate.

In my previous blog I wrote about how I’m losing a really good doctor to South Florida and her desire to build her own gynecological oncology practice. I have no doubt she will be successful.

I just wish losing her was on the same level of annoyance as losing a grocery item I love. Good doctors can be hard to find.

When I was married and living in Portland, Oregon, I found a Celestial Seasonings Melatonin tea that performed miracles on my sleep rhythms. It even had a tasty lemony flavor.

At that point in my life, my sleep apnea had not been diagnosed but my husband had warned me that I stopped breathing briefly and then gasped for air. I knew what that meant.

I’d drink a mug of that melatonin tea before bed, and bam, be asleep in five milliseconds. It gave me the most bizarre, wonderful, crazy, vivid dreams that felt like sleepy acid trips.

I woke up every morning saying, “What the hell?” Morning for me back then arrived at 4:00-4:30-earlier when we moved to NE Portland and I had to drive to work in NW Portland. I had to unlock the Coffee People doors at 5:30 am. I almost never made coffee in the morning at home cause, hey, I was going to where some of the best coffee in the city was brewed.

Thus, my day began with trying to decipher the meaning of my melatonin tea dreams as I drove across the huge span of the Fremont Bridge, with Mt. Hood behind me, just beginning to be outlined in orange, yellow, peachy-pink and golden colors.

Then, one day, I was shopping at our local Freddie’s (Fred Meyer-locally grown version of Walmart, only with personality) and I was looking for my tea. There was no Melatonin tea. Ahhh, what happened to my tea?

None of the other Freddies had it. Safeway didn’t have it. Thriftway didn’t have it. I was distraught.

This was before PC’s were a thing and cell phones were still in that, “they are so annoying and rude,” phase. So, contacting the company for immediate gratification concerning my issue was not going to happen. I gave up the search and resorted to melatonin pills taken with Sleepytime tea. The dreams were gone. Damn, that was sad. They were so entertaining. I felt like Lewis Carroll’s Alice every morning.

I really miss that tea till this day. I may try to solve the mystery of its disappearance. I’m betting that Celestial Seasonings learned they were using too much melatonin, or something like that. Maybe people were ending up in the looney bin because of the weird dreams they were having.

I think I’m going to miss Dr. Brudie more than I miss that stupid tea.