Little Pink Terrorists

This morning, after hitting the snooze button for (not kidding) an hour, I rolled out of bed to get ready for work. First things first, I went to brush my teeth. I was still in wake-up mode, so when my (what's a nice way to say: ) spit was tar black, I thought I was hallucinating. Groggy and confused, I opened my mouth to take a peek. Lo and behold, my tongue was solid black. It was crazy. Have you ever seen the movie Mr. Deeds? Remember Adam Sandler's sicko foot? Yeah, it looked like that. It didn't hurt or feel weird, but it was, indubitably, black. I scrubbed ferociously with my toothbrush, gagging and spitting the blackness out of my mouth…

"What could have caused this?
Is it something I ate?
Is my tongue going to fall off?
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?"

After several minutes and only moderate avail, I walked back into the bedroom to consult the leader of our house. Upon my prodding, Levi opened his eyes, to find me, tongue out, and pointing, "ies lac, i ongue is lac!". A look of concern clouded his face, followed shortly thereafter with a look of enlightenment… (a-ha!)*points to sheet*. Okay, in his defense, he was mostly asleep, and we do have black sheets that have dyed our walls a lovely shade of gray where they meet the edge of the bed, but really, you think the sheets did this? You're right – I was probably dreaming that the bed was a huge ice cream cone and just licked away at my pillow until my tongue turned black. Go back to sleep.

Already running late, I decided to just head to work. The entirety of the half hour drive was spent with me intermittently sticking my tongue out at the rearview mirror in sheer befuddlement. I was able to rid myself of most of the blackness, but it was still noticeably there, a taunting shade of murky gray. I got to the office and went straight for my computer. Before I could even get to my lifeline (Google), I was met by a Yahoo! headline screaming, "Plague a growing threat". (AHHHH. I have the plague!!!).

Before I started getting my affairs in order and calling my family, I moved on to my Google search, where I discovered this: In addition to being a record label, black tongue is also the result of a reaction of the separation of bismuth from salicylate, forming bismuth trisulfide (Bi2S3) in combination with the sulfur found in saliva.

Huh?

Turns out, the Pepto chewables I took last night for a tummy ache were the culprits. Those little pink terrorists. At least it's not the plague.