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Last Monday my neighbor Lena missed the morning stand-up because she dozed off on the commuter train–again. She’s a junior auditor, 14-hour shifts, and the kid keeps her up at night. Coffee turned her stomach, energy drinks gave her the shakes, so she asked me what actually works. I told her the same thing I […]

My flat-mate Sam called it the “Monday pill.” He’d crawl out of bed at 05:45, pop half a 200 mg tablet he ordered from some Polish pharmacy, and by 06:05 he was whistling while the kettle boiled. No doctor, no insurance forms, no awkward questions about why a graphic designer needs a narcolepsy drug. If […]

Last Tuesday at 06:15 my neighbor texted: “Coffee stopped working–any ideas?” She’s a resident juggling 14-hour shifts and two toddlers. I told her the same thing I told my cousin who flies red-eyes for a cargo airline: Provigil, the tiny 200 mg pill that keeps you awake without turning you into a trembling espresso bean. […]

I was standing in the pharmacy aisle of a Farmacias del Ahorro in Playa del Carmen, sweat sticking my shirt to my back, when the clerk shrugged and slid a foil-backed strip of Modiodal across the counter. Same molecule as Provigil, half the price I used to pay back in California. No questions, no triplicate […]

Last winter my alarm rang at 4:30 a.m. and I was already on the Tijuana trolley with a backpack, a passport, and a note from my doctor that said “modafinil 200 mg, patient travels.” By 8:00 a.m. I walked out of Farmacia del Sol on Avenida Revolución holding a sealed box of Modiodal–the Mexican brand […]

Last Tuesday my neighbor Dan waved me over to the fence, phone in hand, face flushed. “I just paid two-twenty for thirty pills that taste like chalk,” he hissed. “The tracking number died after ‘Singapore customs.’” Same story every month: Reddit link, flashy landing page, money gone. I told him what the sleep-clinic nurse told […]