It is raining today, for the umpteenth day in a row. Everything is flooding, and one neighbor has despaired of having a backyard and now jokes about waterskiing.
I confess! I confess! I am a failed criminal. Probably thanks to all of the wet days, I woke up this morning with a dreadful cold. Of course I am out of cold meds. As I'm on my way out the door, my neighbor with the lake asked if I would mind purchasing some cold pills and cough syrup. No problem.
Some of you may already have guessed what happened next. With three boxes of cold pills, a bottle of cough syrup and a package of batteries in hand, I had some of the elements needed to make methamphetamine. Far from taking pity on a sneezing graduate student with work to do, I was a person of suspicion. The clerk asked me some pointed questions and explained that I would have to put back two of the cold pills.
On a more serious note, I'd like to thank everyone who has given blood in the last six weeks. Another neighbor, the kind of neighbor who only seems to exist in fiction as she's so nice, is in her third day in the hospital and getting frequent blood transfusions. As the advertisement says, you're saving a life while sitting at work. Thank you.
Words Written: free-lance project done!
Lessons Graded: twenty-two
2 comments:
Your mistrustful drugstore clerk obviously didn't grow up in South Boston, because residents of South Boston don't know about drug-related crime:
One of the "news" items in today's Globe describes current efforts by police and some city councilers to advise residents of South Boston to lock their doors - to prevent burglaries. According to the article, police have observed that 2/3 of the burglaries in South Boston involve unlocked homes.
(The actual news portion of the article was the statistic that the number of burglaries in South Boston increased 43% between 2003 and 2004. Police attribute the rise to an increase in desperate drug fiends.)
Eileen
Lord, I had no idea that such over-the-counter meds were the basis of illegal street drugs. I think I would have looked at the clerk with my head stopped and said, "huh?"
Hope you get to feeling better. At least the sun is out today.
Post a Comment