Vitamin C, Suppositories, or Heroin, I Can't Really Be Sure

Recently, I got up to find another infamous note on the kitchen table. It said, "Honey, look at these Vitamin C pills. They don't look like the ones it shows on the bottle and the size doesn't match up."

Number one, I was shocked to know that my husband had taken the time to even pay that close of attention to the pills in the bottle, much less that he knew to look on the label at the example pill graphic, so I was already in a state of shock and dismay. But when I opened the bottle, I was really in for shock and dismay. Inside were no little white round tablets or anything resembling any Vitamin C supplement I've ever seen.

The bottle was stuffed to the top of the rim, which was unusual in itself, with very large, brown, strangely shaped unmarked pills. My first thought was that the contents had gone bad and bloated way out of proportion and I was looking at pills which were light years beyond their expiration date and possibly exposed to toxic chemicals somewhere along the line. But one quick glance at that handy-dandy example graphic proved that theory wrong. This was a gelatin-like casing and the pills which were supposed to be in the bottle were solid and shaped like a Twinkie. These were shaped like overstuffed kidney beans, and nearly the size of an actual Twinkie. Well, that's an exaggeration, but they were certainly huge honkin' horse pills that I wouldn't want to swallow!

They were obviously not Vitamin C, the hub was quite right there. So what were they? So many questions! Had my mom given me these? Were they from Uncle Darvin and Aunt Ethel's estate? Had they been in my possession for twenty years? Between my husband and I, we came up with some good theories and some crazies as well.

1) The pills had come from my mother's house and they were actually home made herb capsules from my brother-in-law, who is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. Check. Feasible.

2) They had come from Aunt Ethel and Uncle Darvin's stuff and they were suppositories, which my husband thought they had possibly been embarrassed about and had hid in a Vitamin C bottle. They are both dead now, so who would ever know, really? Check. Also feasible.

3) A drug smuggler packed a bottle full of heroin packets and it never reached its intended destination, but instead mysteriously landed in my medicine cabinet. Check. Crazy.

These theories led to many possibilities. If we took the mysterious pills, would we lessen muscle pain or help heal an ulcer? Would we poop really well? No, you don't take suppositories orally, you put them gulp, well, you know! Would we go on a psychedelic trip, become addicted and paranoid that the FBI had planted them in our house, and go searching the streets in a whacked out daze, seeking "More 'Vitamin C', man," as though we were using code for an illegal drug?

In the end, all three theories were thankfully ruled out. I did a quick Internet search and determined that they were antioxidant pills, maybe anyway. Still, I wasn't taking any chances. I told the hub to throw them away, and he did... only after putting one in a glass jar and poking into it with a knife to see what was in there. An oily, white substance came out that was gross enough to make him walk away. I'm pretty sure they really could have been suppositories. Or heroin. Either way, I'm glad they went in the trash. Who knows what they were or how they got there? It's just one of life's mysteries that make a day in the life of Everyday Underwear very, very interesting.

Have you ever found an unidentifiable pill in your home? I once found a "pill" in my teen daughter's pocket while doing laundry that after an exhaustive Internet search of medications, turned out to be a mint. Sheesh. Boy did I feel dumb. But my breath was sure minty!