As I mentioned in my post yesterday, it’s peak allergy season in Austin right now. Yesterday, I ran out of Claritin-D, which is a very bad thing. I slept for quite a bit of yesterday.
Last night, Ray took me to a small pho place in Round Rock that’s one of those places that (when I’m feeling up to it) inspires appreciation for the sheer efficiency of their operation. They basically have five menu items, each one given the same twenty five permutations (this kind of broth, that kind of meat, those kinds of noodles, etc.), so the service is quick and the food is fresh.
It’s also one of those places where barely anyone speaks English except for the few clearly non-Vietnamese people who were brave enough to walk through the door once or twice and got hooked on the food. Last night, the importance was not so much on what went in the big plastic bowl of broth I got from the kitchen, but in the big bottle of chili-garlic paste that I could use to spice up the broth to the point where my sinuses began to clear even before I started eating. Ahh, sweet relief. It lasted for the duration of the meal, and we almost got halfway home before my head got that wrapped-in-cotton feeling I’m growing more and more accustomed to.
Today, I woke up feeling OK and came into work, and things have slowly gone down hill from there. As soon as I was sure they’d be open, I walked a block over to the CVS pharmacy to pick up another batch of Claritin-D, only to find out that the CVS pharmacy on the Drag doesn’t actually have a pharmacy. (Read that twice. Seriously.) So, I detoured over to the student health center which does have a pharmacy (it’s not that far away, either, unless you try to go to CVS first as I did), and filled out the seventeen pages of paperwork it takes to buy the stuff anymore because it contains pseudoephedrine, which is now a federally controlled substance. I forget whether this is the stuff that you can turn into some sort of opiate or whether it’s the stuff that can be used to make crystal meth — either way, whenever you purchase it you have to turn over your driver’s license and wait while the pharmacist enters you into some federal database.
This is, of course, loads of fun for me because I’m already in one of the federal databases on suspicion of being a terrorist, having made six round trips to the Middle East since 2003 — one of which was a business trip on behalf of the Aga Khan Development Network that involved a series of one-way flights arranged through the travel office of the Aga Khan University, which is located in Karachi, Pakistan. Any time I enter the country, the customs officer suddenly gets really interested in whatever pops up on the computer screen. And I always seem to be the one selected for the “random” search at airport security checkpoints (and I know enough people who work for the government to know that they’re not really that random). Now I’ve been purchasing a controlled substance … oh, yeah, the Feds are going to break down my door any second now.
Where was I? … oh, right. Claritin-D. So, I’m less congested now, but I think the combination of the antihistamine and decongestant coupled with the fact that I was already feeling poorly has resulted in me being a complete space cadet today. Literally: I can’t seem to put two thoughts together to save my life. Although this post seems to contradict that.
Anyway. The sunny weather over the weekend has given way to clouds, which are depressing and gloomy, and we’ve had too much of that kind of weather lately. I hate it when it rains, because no one in Texas seems to know how to drive in the rain … but on the other hand, it does wash the pollen out of the air.
In other words, it’s a fairly typical Monday. Hope yours is going well!
Tags: allergy_season, Mondays, pharmacies
