"Not So Innocently Abroad"
Excerpt from chapter: The Crimean Croup
Excerpt from chapter: The Crimean Croup
"The morning after our evening flight to Simferopol, capital of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in southern Ukraine, the hearing in my left ear was compromised with an unpoppable blockage of the Eustachian tube. After a number of ineffective exaggerated yawns—and one futile shot at the medically reckless technique of holding my nose and blowing—I positioned myself in front and to the left of cultural attaché Susan Cleary, allowing the good ear to clearly monitor our conversation. Twenty-four hours later it went from being a nuisance to an exasperation as I realized my intractable “airplane ear” might be the onset of a sinus infection.
Feeling unwell on the road is not unanticipated for traveling performers. Demanding tour schedules, general fatigue and poor air quality on commercial aircraft often leave many actors susceptible to illness. National touring Broadway shows arrive in town with a cadre of understudies and swings, ready to cover any cast member unable to perform because of illness or exhaustion ..."
"... Many pharmaceuticals requiring a prescription in the United States are available over-the-counter to anyone with the money in Russia and Ukraine. Looking for a good night’s sleep? Ask the pharmacist for Nitrest (Нитрест), the region’s brand name for Ambien. Looking for a good night, without the sleep? Prescribe yourself a handful of Viagra (виагра) and go to town! It’s mostly anti-depressants and pain killers that require a prescription, as do toxic and powerful drugs that require “extra caution.” The term of art, “extra caution,” is defined on a Russian medical exchange website as, “Drugs that could lead to the lethal conclusion of death.”
Sticking an index finger into my right ear, I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times as if I were yawning, and said “plugged.” Sergiy must have been ad-libbing, because his interpretation of my word “plugged” took nearly thirty seconds to communicate in Russian. I then covered both ears with the palm of my hands and said, “I can’t hear.” This time translating the dramatic presentation of symptoms lasted over a minute, leaving me to wonder if Sergiy was secretly pleading with the pharmacist for a little sumpin-sumpin to shut me up during the drive to Yalta. At best, I am an acquired taste. So I wouldn't have blamed him for wanting a little piece and quiet. My antics once so irritated a Trappist monk, he broke a twenty year vow of silence just to call me an asshole.
The pharmacist produced a brown bottle of noxious ear drops and a package of little white pills, which I assumed to be a Sudafed-like decongestant—but for all I knew could have been birth control pills. The instructions: One little white pill every six hours, along with three drops of pungent liquid in each ear every eight hours.
Standing in front of the hotel after throwing medicinal caution to the wind, everyone agreed the medication appeared safe and were confident the pharmacist knew her stuff . Because two is better than one, and excited to kickstart the therapy, I doubled the initial dose swallowing two little white pills—maybe three of the little white Crimean pills—and, for laughs, executed a pratfall onto the sidewalk lying motionless until the motorcade was ready to roll. Out of nowhere, a passerby dropped a small bouquet of roses on my chest and walked away without saying a word.
My doctor probably wouldn’t have prescribed the drugs sold to me in Sevastopol, but the efficacy of those little white pills could not be denied. The intense hallucinations had the therapeutic effect of my completely forgetting I ever had sinuses. Everyone riding naked in the van was a bit uncomfortable, especially after Oprah Winfrey didn’t think twice about stripping down when we picked her up hitchhiking near Sapunhirs’kyi Roz’izd station. But I was enjoying the shotgun-riding singing monkey juggling Matryoshka dolls too much to complain."
Given that the melody-making, Matryoshka manipulating monkey had magically disappeared by the time we arrived at Livadia Palace, I never wrote about the rampant nudity or performing primate in my final State Department report, although I did privately suggest to Oprah she have a particularly nasty mole on her back examined without delay. Other than the purple haze of my psychedelic-mushroom-like trip to Yalta, those little white pills offered very little relief."
