Yesterday was a stupid day.
First, I got up and played with Roger for awhile, while the dogs were outside. I was throwing his mouse down the hall and suddenly remembered how Henry used to fetch his pink mice for me and got sad. I miss Henry.
Then after that depressing realization, I got to work and had the kind of day where you never look up because you are so busy. Just as soon as I'd feel like maybe I had a handle on my work, more would come, like Lucy at the chocolate factory. Soon I was eating pages. Which is not as fun as eating candy.
At any rate, it was 5:00 before I knew it, but by that time I had a screeching, screaming, mincing Richard Simmons migraine. I have no idea what Richard Simmons migraine is, but once I said screech and scream and mince I thought of him. It was an annoying migraine and it kind of had a balding perm.
So me and my short-shorts migraine left right at 5:00, even though I could have easily stayed several more hours to work. As soon as I got to the privacy of my car, I shot my migraine drug up my nose, which yes, I am SUPPOSED to do. It's not like I took a pill and snorted it.
I remembered that, ironically, I had to go to Target to pick up the medication I take every day to keep migraines at bay, and although my head currently was in a vise, that stuff really does work pretty well. The drugs I shoot up my nose? I used to take nine a month, and now I take maybe one or two. Which is good because the special shoot-it-up-your-nose-when-you-have-a-migraine meds cost about $11,000 apiece.
At any rate, I get over to the Target, there, and it is packed. Naturally everyone in the world was stampeding over there to fill their prescriptions or get their Renuzit or whatever right after work.
"Hi, I'm here to pick up a call-in prescription. Gardens."
"Oh, yes, June," said the pharmacy tech. It occurred to me that the fact she knows my first name is not a good sign. I am there 70 times a month. There is the shoot-up-the-nose stuff, the take-it-every-day stuff, the prescription Vitamin D because the take-it-every-day stuff depletes my Vitamin D, my prescription iron because you know you want to hear all about my girl problems, and so forth. I am 79 years old.
But there was a problem. Of course. Of course there was a problem. When you have Richard Simmons jumping in your head and dealing a meal, and all you really want to do is lie down with a cold compress and maybe some morphine, there has to be a problem with the PRESCRIPTION YOU GET EVERY SINGLE MONTH.
Do you remember me talking about my pharmacy delivery service? It's part of my insurance and they talked me into getting my meds delivered from now on because it's somehow cheaper, but that stuff isn't gonna be here for awhile. However, the part where I ORDERED it made me unable to get my everyday meds. Which trust me, are no fun and it's not like I can go sell them on the street. Say, I got a pocket full of anti-migraine-getting meds! Elvis would envy my supply!
Because they know me intimately there, they offered to call my insurance for me, so I wandered around Target, wanting to alternately faint and barf from my migraine. I talked myself out of buying Rob Lowe's autobiography but I caved at a new welcome mat. It has birds on it.
Finally I took my weary head back to the pharmacy, but I could see the poor girl still on the phone. I sat on the benches only old people sit on, and this beleaguered woman in scrubs came up with her kid.
Now, I do not know from kids. He was somewhere between 18 months and 10 years old. And as he waited for what were undoubtedly mom's gin shots in a pill, he began bellowing.
Bellowing.
Like, it was a combination of yodeling, a Gregorian chant, and some kind of Native American rain dance or something. "Heyyyyyyy, yoooooooooo, heyyyyyyyy, yooooooooo" and he VIBRATED his voice while he did it.
"Heyyyyyy, yoooooooo, heyyyyyy, yooooooo."
In the meantime, his mom just stared into space, not even noticing her berserk child was speaking to the Bison spirit or whatever the hell he was doing. And did I mention my head sort of hurt?
"Heyyyyyy, yoooooooo, hey-y-y-y-y-y-y-y, yoooooooooooo..."
Some woman with a manical grin came around the corner. "I knew that was Andrew! I heard his singing all the way over in the Kleenex aisle!"
Okay, lady, whoever you are, do not ENCOURAGE old Sun-Ra to continue to possess this child. The mom sort of woke from her daze and said, "Oh, hi, Shelby. Yes, you know he likes to sing."
"Heyyyyy, yoooooooo, heyyyyyy, yooo-ooo-ooooo."
I was going to burst an artery. Could they not SEE the woman holding her HEAD not four feet away? Did it not OCCUR to them that people at a pharmacy might not be feeling up to snuff and therefore may be not in the mood for another chorus of heyyy yooo? I just knew Shelby was gonna go back in the store and get Andrew a cowbell or something, and that would be when you'd read in the paper about a middle-aged woman stabbing everyone with barbecue forks at the Target.
"Heyyyy, yoooooo, heyyyyy, yooooo..."
The pharmacist gave the woman her prescription moonshine and earplugs, but before they left, do you know what she said? DO YOU KNOW? DO YOU!?!?!?!?
"You gonna sing a song for Mr. Joe, our pharmacist?"
"MOTHER OF GOD, NOOOOOOOO!" I was screaming on the inside. Fortunately for us all, Andrew got performance anxiety and clammed right up.
Without looking up or remotely encouraging either mother or child, Mr. Joe said, "That'll be $8.50."
Anyway. By the time they straightened out my med sitch my migraine had cleared up, and I came home and took the dogs for a walk and got greeted by two little girls who reminded me so much of my Pal From Ma and me when we were tots that I nearly died.
"Can I pet your dog?" asked the one in all pink with the pink polka dot headband. She had 8,000 questions about my dog, and the one in blues and greens kind of held back. "I like TallUUlah," said the pink one.
"Which one do you like?" I asked the less fussy-dressed girl, who was somewhere between 18 months and 10 years old. "Hmmm, I don't know," she said. "Why is that one so scared?" she pointed at Edsel, who had wound his leash around me 60 times and was cowering at the thought of a child touching him.
Anyway, talking to them got the heyy yooo out of my head and cheered me right up, if not so much Edsel.
I wonder if Edsel would like Andrew to sing him a song?
