I spent most of the weekend suffering from cough due to cold or maybe just allergies. Either way, my nose alternates between running like a faucet or being completely stopped up, making my voice so deep that when I call Caroline from the other room, she answers, “What Daddy?”
I’ve sneezed until I felt like my head was about to come off and honestly, wouldn’t care if it went flying across the room if it would just make the congestion stop.
Thursday night before bed, I knew the time had come to medicate myself. I don’t really take any kind of medication on a regular basis, unlike P who pops the Zyrtec D like it grows on little antihistamine trees in our backyard.
I thought about pilfering one of his Zyrtec D’s, but remembered there is way too much pseudoephedrine in them and if I took one before bed, not only would I not sleep, but I would have enough nervous, medicated energy to obsess all night about important issues like global warming.
So, I rummaged through our medicine cabinet looking for just plain Sudafed, so that I could take my dose of choice, 30 mg, because I’m a girl that knows my cold medicine limits.
Alas, we were out. I settled for taking one Benadryl, which still has me feeling sleepy and incoherent 5 days later.
Friday afternoon, I headed to Walgreens to purchase some Sudafed. Wonderful Sudafed. Nothing else relieves the pressure in my head like those little red pills chock full of miraculous, healing properties.
In case y’all don’t know this, it is no longer possible to just walk in to a pharmacy, grab your box of Sudafed, and head home to enjoy a head that no longer weighs 23 pounds. Oh no. They try to fool you with the identical boxes of Sudafed PE and Walfed PE, but don’t be confused, dear internet friends. PE is the poor man’s decongestant substitute. The only advantage it has over the original Sudafed is, apparently, you can’t make crystal meth out of it.
See how I just threw out crystal meth like I’m all street savvy, when in reality, the only way I have this information is because I saw it on 20/20, which means I was home at 8:00 on a Friday night with nothing better to do than watch Barbara Walters.
Anyway, to buy the original, miracle working Sudafed, you have to take the display card up to the pharmacist’s counter. I grabbed the card, walked over to the pharmacist and slid it across the counter so that we could make the exchange. The pharmacist looked me up and down, obviously trying to deduce if I was indeed, in the business of manufacturing crystal meth, and yes, I looked the part in my “He Hunts, I Shop” t-shirt, yoga pants and running shoes while clutching my kleenex tightly in my hand and saying, “Please, sir. I must have the Sudafed.”
I guess he decided I was okay because he asked me to hand over my drivers’ license so he could enter my name in the computer database to determine if I was out buying boxes of Sudafed at every store in town. Finally, I signed something to the effect that I realized I was purchasing Sudafed, was aware that it contained pseudoephedrine and I could be accused of running a crystal meth operation and eventually, lose my home and all other earthly possessions.
Ironically, in the past, when I’ve gotten prescriptions for major narcotics filled after such things as childbirth and P’s back surgeries, all they do is hand me the little bag with the potent, mind altering drugs and tell me to “Have a nice day!” to which I reply, “Do you know what you just gave me? How could it not be a nice day?”
What they don’t understand is when I’m suffering from this kind of congestion, all I want is the congestion reducing benefits of real Sudafed.
If I wanted to get high, I’d just take another Benadryl.