On Being Studied

My alarm goes off early. Gratingly, shiveringly, numbingly early. I groan myself out of bed and flip it off, waging a silent debate about hitting the snooze button.. It's 8am.
I'm on my way to participate in a psych study looking at the effects of a certain ADHD drug on driving concentration. I haven't started the meds yet. I hop on the train. The commute nods past, and I arrive at MIT. After just one misturn, I wind up in front of the lab building and hike up the stairs.
I locate the room easily enough--a candy-apple-red Volkswagon beatle hunkers in front of a big TV screen, poised at the center of a web of wires. A tall girl with what I call 'hacker hands' stares at a computer monitor until she notices me waving at the door.
"You Paul?"
"Sure am," I yawn. (an aside: did you yawn reading this? I yawned writing it. Every time.)
She has me fill out a questionnaire. I probably lied when it came to how drowsy I'm feeling. Then she hooks me up to an EKG and a breath-depth sensor, and tapes a sweat-measuring pad to my fingertips. Make a fist, she says, wrapping the wire up my knuckles onto my wrist. Tape. Arm straight out. Tape. Put your fist on your shoulder. Tape. She leads me into the car.
"Should I buckle up?" I ask, reaching for the belt. "Force of habit." Wouldn't feel comfortable driving without the comfortable weight of the seatbelt. Something akin to the leaden blanket at the dentist.
"Some people do; some people don't," she chuckles. I buckle.
She adjusts the volume and the camera aimed at my eyes. I adjust the seat and wish I had functional sideview mirrors.
"There will be an accurate rearview mirror picture," she assures me. One glance makes me a skeptic.
The gear shifter is nonfunctional.
The stereo doesn't work.
Roadsounds comes from speakers.
The pixellated viewscreen is tiresome and uninteresting, aside from some moving objects designed to catch my attention. At least the pedestrians shuffle across the intersection just as the lights turned green. And big vans are parked in front of stopsigns, blocking half the view. And construction cones spring up like mushrooms after a thunderstorm.
The worst thing about it is the lack of feeling. Forty-nine percent of the driving experience is absent. There's no rumble of the engine, no rush of wind. No connection with the car, no sixth sense of periphery. And no acceleration, up or down. It's flat, and it makes me heartsick. And slightly seasick. It's not driving. It's a mockery. Plus it puts me to sleep, and I struggle not to nod off. They're going to see everything on the cameras. Damnit.
As it turns out, I get bonuses for not getting in crashes, for not getting caught speeding, for not going over the time limit. I lost half my starting points, mainly because of trying to shift lanes without a sideview or blindspot window. With all due respect, that accident was a fault in programming. I glance in the mirrors and see gray carpet and a few posters on the wall. This is pretty difficult.
At one point I had to make a hands-free phonecall, being told and memorizing information, and then relaying it to the voice-activated device.
At another I had to play a pattern game, listening to a series of letters and saying, "check" when a Q was followed three letters behind by an A. Question and Answer. QED. Que? Oh man, I most definitely have ADHD.
TIJQIEJAcheckEIJAJQIQIEJAcheckJEIOQEQEUTAcheckEIAJLAAIEJQIEPAcheckIPQRMSAnd so on.
I miss a couple because my mental priority stayed on driving. Of this I am distinctly proud.
I fill out another questionnaire about my experience, being more honest on the drowsy section. Comments/Suggestions: Maybe position a fan outside the window.
I pocket the bonus $10 and head off to breakfast, itching to get in my own car and drive.