At the end of my first year in college I did the usual exam week cramming. I don’t test well (my brain completely freezes up), so I had opted to write term papers instead of take exams whenever possible. Because I was given to procrastination, the papers weren’t even close to completion on the second to last night. On the advice of a dormmate, I bought a packet of diet pills to help me stay awake all night. Back in 1980, there wasn’t much in the diet pills besides lots and lots of caffeine. Along with other students in the dorm lounge, I popped two every four to six hours.
At 3am, everyone else in the dorm lounge was bright eyed and bushy-tailed, if somewhat exhausted. I picked up on this when I woke up from the snooze I’d fallen into an hour and a half before. This was a source of much amusement to the other lounge occupants, who had not dozed off and were talking and typing away a mile a minute. Granted, they crashed later on due to lack of sleep, but I was frustrated that I couldn’t stay awake, despite dosing myself with caffeine.