Dear Teenage Druggies,

Dear Teenage Druggies,

Let’s talk about my experience tonight at Walgreens eh? First of all I would like to start by saying operating heavy machinery, i.e. cars, is not a smart thing to do under the influence of night time cough medicine.

Anyway, I have a cold. Not a cute-snuggle-in-my-fave-pajamas-with-a-hot-cup-of-cocoa-cold but a real live in your face cold. It’s thrown my whole work day off. So after a full day of dissolving Alka-Seltzer Plus tablets in what was probably not enough water (what does 4-6oz look like!?), I decided to take a trip to the local Walgreens to grab some more cold medicine so I can feel better in time for my show tomorrow night. Now would be a good time to reveal that the Alka-Seltzer Plus tablets I’ve been dissolving all day in what was probably not enough water, was indeed the “night” cold formula. So yeah, I’ve been taking “night time” medicine all DAY.

Anywho, I get to the local Walgreens and after choosing between the fifty billion different options to cure the “common” cold, I settled on Mucinex because those commercials are so convincing. I also got some Thera-flu because my best friend, Mirriam told me to and she’s in school to get her doctorate in clinical psychology so I figure everything she says is right. I grab a bottle of Pepsi and a bag of Honey Chex-Mix and I groggily place all my items on the counter as I visualize evicting the Mucinex monster out of my body with a couple of doses. As she rings up the Mucinex (ever read the word Mucinex so many times in one paragraph? Mucinex, mucinex, mucinex – say it fast three times and tell me what it sounds like), the screen prompts her to ask for my ID.

Great. I left it at home. I coughed in her face a couple of times for dramatic affect, stared at her through my glassy, swollen eyes, and then said,

“Does it look like I’m trying to go home and get high? Don’t I look like I need this stuff?”

She apologized but wouldn’t let me buy the stuff. So I purchased the Pepsi and Honey Chex-Mix and walked to my car defeated.

Two things happened on that walk back to that heavy piece of machinery I shouldn’t have been operating:

1. A decision was made to go home and get my ID because I needed the stuff and…

2. I immediately got upset at whatever 15 year old kid got caught downing Dayquil on the rocks to get high!

It’s because of you, teenage druggie who can’t get high from illegal aids like everybody else and resort to everyday household just-in-case-supplements to get high, that a grown woman can’t evict the Mucinex monster without proving I’m over 15 to relieve symptoms due to the common cold.

Then I thought about it, maybe it’s not all your fault. I didn’t even know you could get high from cold medicine until I saw it on the news that they showed so conveniently on the 4 o’clock news when kids are getting home from school. I bet the sales in cough medicine has increased and I sure the margins of teenage druggies has skyrocketed 75% due to this new piece of information. (I have no statistics to back up the validity of that statement but I still bet it’s true). Call me a conspiracist.  Then I got mad because I was thinking, “well what if I WAS an adult who wants to get high from cold medicine. All I have to do is show my id?

So I went back home, got my id, purchased the cold medicine which has the potential to get me high, and went to McDonald’s which is a whole other story in itself… ok you wanna know what happened?

To make a short story longer here’s what happened. The Micky D’s in my hood is under construction and just installed the new double ordered drive through lane feature (what else do you call those things). My order came out to $6.52. I get to the window and Sally says, “That’ll be $18.02.” while grabbing my debit card. Now keep in mind, by this time I’m a little delirious from the last dose of night time medicine I took. So I wouldn’t let go off my card. So the whole time we are both gripping my card and this is how the convo goes:

Me: (laughing) what?

Sally: (dead serious like she’s closing a real estate deal) It’s $18.02

Me: (still holding me card while she’s holding it too) (laughing) What did I order? Steak?

Sally: (not laughing) oh I’m sorry, $6.52

Me: (loosens grip on card)

Transacting Complete.

So I drive to the second window and I get so close my side view mirror almost kisses the hand of the employee handing me the food. Instead of reaching for my food, I try to give her my debit card again, because clearly the transacted experience at the first window wasn’t enough for me. I started laughing again because (a) I’m so close to the freaking window and (b) I just tried to pay for my food again and (c) I’m envisioning teenagers toasting wine glasses filled with Dayquil.

I get my food, almost run a couple of red lights, and now it’s about to be lights out.

In short, teenage druggie, when you actually get a cold, do you go for the harder stuff like Nyquil?

Sincerely,

I Need My Own Sitcom