Take 35 of these and call me in the morning

I (Jon) was struggling with a cold a few weeks ago. Since I needed to keep teaching, and our supply of western cold medicine is running low, I figured I'd hit a pharmacy. I wanted to avoid a hospital or a real doctor as they tend to give you a shot in the butt for any old reason and I prefer my butt unshot, thank you very much.

Pharmacies here are a little different than in Canada. The employees are trained (at least somewhat) how to give out medicine. The basic deal is this: doctors and pharmacists (apparently) had a fight a while back. Doctors would only give a prescription for about 3 days worth of medicine, making the patient come back every time they needed a refill. The doctors did this to make money off of each visit. The pharmacists got upset because people were only buying 3 days of medicine at a time. The retaliation?

"Don't have a prescription? That's okay! We'll hook you up with what you need."

What has evolved is a pharmacy that will give you pretty potent medication for a paltry price without a prescription. I picked up pills for a sore throat that contained morphine. No questions asked. Usually, it's $2 for a pack of 10-20.

But I digress, and digression is the seed of many things. I'm not sure what, but it reminds me of this story...

So one of the cold medicines I got came in a pack. The instructions were to take one pack with each meal. "Good enough," I thought, "I can do that." I get home, have a meal and open the pack, only to find...


One pack is about 35 little pills that smelled like something you give a pet rodent. Thus the title, thus my story.

The End.