WANDA nearly had a heart attack during the week when she saw the shelves emptying of what we’d class “everyday drugs”.
At our age, we’ve got a little stash. Not “good time” drugs you’d see floating around in a seven-hour music festival bus queue. Just the type of drugs that fixes things, like a toolkit waiting for a nail to come loose, or a gardening kit waiting to remove an unwanted weed.
There’s enough in our stash to stave the worst of fevers, yet the thought of not having three spare packets of cold and flu tablets is distressing.
You see, we like to be prepared. Maybe too prepared. Maybe prepared to the point we’ve become obsessive, and may cause injury in the aisle of the chemist if there’s a race to the counter for a final packet of arthritis cream.
I don’t have arthritis. But the cream does wonders for creaky joints.
In our medicine cupboard, we’ve got little pills for allergies, back pain, knee pain – all different shapes and colours. There’s stuff for big headaches, little headaches, long headaches, and bumps that just make your head hurt – again, all different.
Up a shelf, there’s the prescription drugs. The ones they won’t let you drive a forklift for an hour after consumption.
Before you raise your eyebrows and tell me I’m getting all random again, I honestly saw a warning on the side of a packet of prescription drugs – “do not drive a forklift for an hour after consumption”. Or maybe it was a bus. Whatever.
I know, the medics will curse me for saying, but I feel there comes an age when it’s sometimes easier to apply a Band-aid than it is to join the queue at the clinic at risk of Mrs Smith deciding that’s the opportune moment to greet me with a hug and a big wet kiss on the cheek.
Because, that’s what happens when you age. You see people at the doctors’ clinic that you haven’t seen for a while. Some might think it’s a nice occasion to celebrate still being alive, but if I’m feeling a little off-colour, the last thing I want is someone sharing whatever sores they’ve developed in the last fortnight.
The doctors all used to tell you that every ailment was potentially a symptom of something more sinister. Now, with so many people flooding their clinics with Covid, they’re telling you to stay at home and look after yourself.
Fair call. I too am happy to bend over while Wanda holds the phone up to whatever it is I’m showing the doctor during a video call.
Better the shame of a community rectal examination than the spreading of communicable diseases. I’ve been saying it for years.
The stash also has a third tier of drugs.
These are the ones they oversubscribed when we really were sick. Still not the type you’ll see at the music festival, but strong enough to make your head spin while the grin on your dial widens towards your ears, as you start telling those near you how much you love them, all the while recalling the 70s like they were the best days of your life.
Maybe they were. I have trouble remembering.
There’s no glass box, but those tier-three drugs are in the “break in case of emergency” section of the cabinet, for times you feel any more snot into a Kleenex, or throbbing of a toe, will send you through the Pearly Gates.
We rarely touch these drugs, and most of them have probably passed their used-by date – another thing the doctors will have me in enemy territory over. Please everybody, throw out your expired drugs. They’re bad for you.
However, I’m going to say there’s the comfort of knowing they’re there, just in case I’m looking for one more good time before the cardiac arrest team arrives.
Our grown-up children call it their pharmacy. “I’m feeling a little off,” they’ll say. Funny, never were quite so sick when they were growing up.
Nevertheless, Wanda’s got me looking for a new box of something every time I’m out. Just in case those nutters keep clearing the shelves of “our” drugs, like they did with “our” toilet paper.
Part the problem, you say?
Hey Wanda, fancy a drop of that nice whisky we picked up from duty free on our last cruise? Maybe that’ll do the trick.
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