I suspect the following dialogue between myself and the attendant at the local Liddil's will only make sense to a Kiwi.
* * *
Toast: Is this a drug store?
Man (indignant): No. Absolutely not. It's a chemist.
Toast (looking around at the makeup,vitamins, over the counter pharmaceuticals, not to mention the busy professionals bottling pills behind the counter): Hunh. Okay. Chemist. Right. A new word. Got any hydrogen peroxide?
Man (even more indignant): No. It's illegal.
Toast (startled): Really? You're kidding. Why?
Man: It is a key component in making drugs.
Toast: Wow. I didn't know that. We use it for road rash.
Man: Road rash? Is that a drug?
Toast (laughs): Uh no. You know... a scrape, like rubbing your knee on a road.
Man (looking a bit relieved): Ah.... no. No … road... rash... We do have plasters.
Toast: Huh? For walls?
Man: No. For wounds.
Toast: Plasters. Okay. So no hydrogen peroxide. How about sudafed?
Man: Sue duh fed? What's that?
Toast: Pseudoephedrine.
Man (immediately returning to state of offense and suspicion): Do you make pee?
Toast: Of course I make pee. All the plumbing works fine. What does that have to do with it?
Man (moving to push some magic button behind the counter): No pee. PEE! The drug?
Toast: People take pee? What?! What on earth does this have to do with my cold?
Man: A cold?
Toast: Well... yes. Why else would I need pseudoephedrine?
Man (now equally confused): To make pee?
Toast: It's a diuretic? I didn't know that! No, I just need to clear up my sinuses. I've got a cold. Need a decongestant. I usually take either pseudoephedrine or guaifenesin.
Man (enlightened and reaching behind the counter for a package): Oooohh! Of course! We have that in combination. Here you go.
Toast (reads the package and gasps): Fenfen! Holy cow! This stuff is illegal!
Man (baffled): Why?
Toast: Teenage girls OD on this stuff, pop it like candy as a diet drug. Hot damn! How much will you sell me? Fantastic for colds.
Man (reluctantly): Well... it's available over the counter, but we have to be sure you aren't using it to make pee...
2 comments:
That's almost the same conversation my daughter had with a Chemist in Melbourne ovser Neosporin. FYI, it's been almost a month since we've been able to purchase 'real' Sudafed or Pep'sid either. Something's up,
Hi Toast,
We just arrived in the Bay Islands, New Zealand and would love to find you. Hopefully you're still here - or back in Mexico? Rumor has it you're going back to the sea?
Kamaya
www.svkamaya.blogspot.com
ruthowitz@gmail.com
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