You’re walking the dog with your mom when you suddenly feel light-headed. Holy shit, you’re about to pass out. You stop, hand her the leash, take a knee. What the Hell is this? Low blood sugar? No. You had breakfast a little over an hour ago. Dehydration? Nah – or not any more than usual anyway.

It passes, and she gives you some grief about getting a checkup. You continue the walk, but you’re rattled. Fifteen minutes later, it happens again. You sit down on the wet sidewalk to avoid falling and giving yourself a concussion (again). You hold your head in your hands.

It passes again, and you get yourself home. You feel off, physically but also mentally. Erin comes to take you to lunch and you tell her about what went down as you eat your salad. You’ve been reducing your calorie intake this week, but not enough to make you pass out. You’re still eating plenty of food. In truth, you’re simply being intentional and focused about not over eating for a change.

She encourages you to see your doctor. Then your conversation shifts, and you’re trying to say something, but you don’t know exactly what. You have a memory of something you want to express – or was it a dream? You’re thinking hard, but you can’t quite locate the thought you’re trying to think. It’s so confusing – like momentary dementia. And as you’re describing with growing alarm your cognitive difficulty, it happens again. Your head feels light and you feel a vague tingling in your arms and legs. You put your head down on the table beside your salad, without pride. There may be blue cheese dressing in your hair. Fuck it. She checks your pulse. 40 beats per minute. Your baseline heart rate has always been low, but not this low. What the Hell is happening to you?

Erin calls your doctor. He can’t see you because you didn’t book an appointment three months in advance. The nurse thinks you need an EKG and suggests the ER. Really? That’s for like, heart patients and shit, right? Erin is stoic.

At the ER, you’ve never had faster treatment in your life. No check-in bullshit, no insurance card crap. In a matter of moments, you’re through the door with stickers on your chest and a machine checking out your ticker. It reads as normal.

They take blood and run a battery of tests. Everything comes back normal (though your blood sugar is a little high, fatty). They can’t tell what’s happening unless they can record your heart during one of these attacks. They want you to either stay in the hospital overnight or wear a Holter monitor that will track your heartbeat. What is this Holter monitor thing, and will it fit under a windbreaker?

They talk to your doctor. You are to call him on Monday to arrange for the Holter monitor. But you seem fine and your tests are normal, which is deeply unsatisfying because what is causing this low heart rate issue then? They let you go, and tell you not to exert yourself. Do haunted houses count as exertion?

You’re a little disoriented leaving the hospital. Is this the way home? You think it is, but can’t figure out if these streets are ascending or descending in this direction. You press the map function on the car console, but aren’t really concentrating on it (can’t concentrate on it?).

You’re in your head now, doubting your brain function. Is this a legal parking spot? You think so. Yes, there are no signs prohibiting parking. But it’s a really great spot in a really busy area, so why would it be open at this time on a Friday night unless it were not legal to park here? You know it’s legal, but some part of you doesn’t.

At dinner you’re still a little off, but your head clears by the time it’s over and you hit the haunted house. You have a great time, and you have no episodes. You are you again, and it’s great.

The next morning, you make yourself three cups of herbal tea in quick succession. It’s a green tea that tastes great and is supposed to have natural ingredients to help suppress your appetite. Plus, it has just a third of the caffeine of a cup of coffee. As a result, you’ve felt licensed to chug this stuff, and have been drinking between ten and twelve cups each day (or maybe more – you’re not really counting) during this week-long quasi diet, back to back to back like a chain smoker.

As you finish your third cup, you start to feel off again. Oh crap, you hope you don’t have to go back into the ER and . . . Wait a minute. Could it be the tea? What’s in this stuff again?

You walk to the pantry and look at the label. For the first time you notice a freaking medical warning on the box, and on each individual tea bag. A medical warning on a bag of tea?! It advises you to consult a physician if you have a medical condition or are taking medication while drinking the tea. It doesn’t say to talk to your doctor if you’re drinking this stuff like a fiend shoots smack, but it probably should.

You take the box to your wife and she looks up the half dozen unregulated ingredients. This one causes dizziness. That one causes diarrhea. A third causes you to grow a vagina. A fourth can lead to the wearing of yoga pants around the house and an appreciation for Paul Mitchell shampoos and conditioners.

Only halfway through the list, your wife looks up from her phone research. “You drink how much of this a day?”

“Uh . . . heh, heh. Too much?”

You text your suspicion that it’s the tea to your pharmacist friend who has been worried about you. She doesn’t know whether to hug you or punch you. “Oh for fuck sake! . . . You already poisoned yourself with caffeine before! I’m sooooo glad you never got into hard drugs.”

Caffeine? Holy crap – that’s right! You poisoned yourself with too much coffee in Vegas last spring, and now you’ve poisoned yourself with too much tea.

Not for the first time, the words of your wife ring in your ears: “Mike Hamilton: nothing in moderation.”