The mission

Friday I was on a mission, to find and purchase Triaminic Chest and Nasal Congestion. Sounds easy, right? That's what I thought as I herded my two half-wild children into the Jimmy and set off toward town. "We'll be gone for a few minutes," I promised my pouting children. Yeah right, I should have known better. A late Friday afternoon in the Fall maybe, but in Summer at the beginning of tourist season; traffic would be horrble. Maybe I should go to the pharmacy by the house, iI thought, but the spell Wal-Mart had woven over me was to strong. Nah, ______pharmacy is so small, they probbly wouldn't have what I'm looking for. So off we went to Wal-Mart.

Cars were bumper-to-bumper , and we moved at a snail's pace once we entered the city limits. "I'm hot, I'm hungry." Robert whined, kicking at the back of my seat. Frustrated, I looked at my watch. It normally took me 5 minutes to get from my house to Wal-Mart; today it was taking 15.

I groaned inwardly when we arrived at our destination. The parking was a sea of cars in every shape and size. This is definately going to take a lot longer than I thought. I parked at the side parking lot of the store, plunked Robert in a shopping cart, and raced towards the yawning doors of the store. "Whee! We're playing NASCAR!" Robert yelled as we zipped across the parking lot

I felt like a female version of Indiana Jones as we dodged other shopping carts and bodies on our quest to obtain the coveted Triaminic; finally, we were there. It sat on the shelf in all its glory waiting for some sucker . . .er. . .shopper to find. I grabbed it and happily headed off to the checkout, my quest, I thought complete.

Look at the label, my intution whispered. "Crap!" The Triaminic was for chest congestion; Robert needed nasal decongestant also. I ran back to the pharmacy and spoke with my friend, Kay, working there. 'We don't carry that anymore because of the dopers; they get high off of it, so Triaminic no longer makes it."

Robert erupted into a fit of coughing as we walked away. My baby suffers because some idiot is looking for a cheap thrill, I fumed as I walked out of the store. I tried the local Walgreens and HEB, same story. That only left the pharmacy near my house. I looked at my watch. The pharmacy was all the way across town, it closed at 6, and it was now 5:45, with the rush hour traffic in full swing.

I still don't know how I did it, perhaps like the song, Jesus [took] the Wheel.

I took side streets and arrived at the pharmacy with three minutes to spare. "Stay in the Jimmy," I told the boys as slammed the truck into park and leaped out. For what I hoped was the last time that day, raced across a scorching parking lot. With unbelievable agility (for me) I hurdled the waist high brick wall that divided the pharmacy from the parking lot, and ran inside the cool dark building. (About time these long legs of mine decided to work.) They had the generic form of the Triaminic I had been looking for. If only I had followed my intuition, I wouldn't have been ready to collapse when I got home.

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