This is Your Brain on Drugs

I must admit, it's pretty nice when a CVS opens up a block from your apartment approximately a week before you get sick. So I've been shopping frequently at this aforementioned pharmacy now that my symptoms change on a daily basis.

Yesterday it was Advil and today Sudafed, or to be more precise, the cheaper store brand versions of each drug. This evening, I found myself confronted with an entire arsenal of nasal decongestants: 24-hour, night-time, allergy, multi-symptom cold relief, even non-drying sinus. I read the back of that last one, wondering exactly what it did with the mucus if not dry it up. I quickly found out: "makes coughs more productive," the box read. I put it back, pretty much convinced I don't want my coughs to be more productive.

Finally I discovered the shelf on which the plain old, no frills decongestant should have been. Except in it's place was a sign telling me that the government of the state of Illinois is now monitoring the sale of any drug containing Pseudoephedrine, and that I had to go to the pharmacy counter to ask for this medication.

So I went back to the counter and was promptly handed a box of the stuff I was after. Then I was asked to fill out a form, providing my name, address, and driver's license number.

"Just out of curiosity," I said to the pharmacist. "What's this, you know, all about?"

She gave me a long-winded response, basically reiterating exactly what was written on the little sign that was posted on the shelf.

I wasn't exactly sure how to phrase the question I really wanted to ask. "But I mean... what is it exactly...?"

"It's cause the kids are making crystal meth with it."

Ahhhh.

So every month, the store has to send to the government the list of those people who have purchased anything containing Pseudoephedrine. So that they can, you know, keep track of those of us who might be selling it in large doses on the black market. Can you imagine that? Me? A crystal meth dealer? That would be an interesting career change. No doubt I'd be making probably 75 times the amount of money I'm making right now.

But money is the last thing on my mind this week. All I ask for is some dried out nasal passages and a good night's sleep, so that I can build up my reserves again and avoid getting the stomach flu my roommate is currently struggling with. CVS will be getting a lot more of my business if it means being able to avoid the puking disease...