Coffee heat rising

El Gobierno Quiere Ayudarte…

El gobierno quiere ayudarte… The government wants to help you! HOW, after all, would we ever get by without being made to traipse back out to the car from the pharmacy counter to retrieve still MORE identification so we can buy a package of nasal decongestant? This means, after standing in line behind three customers, I have to trudge outside, dodge the panhandlers, trudge back inside, and stand behind three more customers.

Y’know what I think?

O’course you do, but lest we somehow miss the point: Dammit! If you want to convert a box of Sudafed into meth and snort it up your goddamn nose, you DESERVE WHAT YOU GET. And if you’re stupid enough to buy meth from a drug dealer who has distilled the junk from a boxful of Sudafed, YOU EFFIN’ DESERVE WHAT YOU GET.

Let them eat fuckin’ cake!

Okay, okay, let’s admit it: weirdly enough, I did have some fun traipsing in and out and in and out of the Albertson’s.

First, on the way back in, I pass the BIGGEST, yea verily THE BADDEST, most MASSIVE dude you have ever seen in your entire life, marching out of the store with a bouquet of flowers in his paw.

Awwwww…soooo adorable! And, alas, born 30 years too late.

Moving on, I rejoin the pharmacy line, where I fall in behind an Old Dude. He’s loafing in an electric scooter which, as it develops, he doesn’t really need. But in his old age, he has discovered which side his butter’s breaded on. He and I chat about the joys of retirement, which allow us to not give a damn whether we’re first in line. He says he loves to go fishin’. I ask where he likes to fish. He names a park pond over in Po’ Folk Country, where if you fork over a fee for an “urban fishing license” (don’t ask, goddammit: el gobierno quiere nothing more than ayudarte!) you can catch catfish, a creature he finds delectable. And you know he comes from your father’s social class, which causes you at once to love him and to fear him. 😀

The guy behind the counter, also born about 30 years too late, is another of the cutest things you’ve ever seen.

It takes this lovely creature a good 10 minutes of farting around, filling out online forms and more online forms and MORE online forms to sell you ONE BOX of menacing nasal decongestant. This is OK, because of course it provides you just that much more time to admire his adorableness.

How can you possibly be annoyed when you get to absorb this much cuteness and adorableness from an array of random males?

Well, of course, you can’t.

You CAN be annoyed, however, when you get home and find you can’t break into the mini-Fort Knoxes with which El Gobierno arranges to protect you and your brainless children from yourselves. It damn near takes a chain saw to break the lid off the squirt bottle of nasal decongestant, and putting the Sudafed knockoff away in such a form that you can get at it in the middle of the night without driving yourself into a flying rage breaks your fingernails and requires you to find a jar with a lid and a blank label in your garage junk collection.

So yes. Yes, you are pissed by the time you get these medicaments into your house and into a state that allows you to use them without rage-inducing hassle when you will need to use them.

Porque el gobierno quiere ayudarte. By golly!

Consumer-Proof Packaging? Make the retailer open it!

So while I was visiting Costco to collect the AMEX rebate and get some gas, I also picked up some RoC Retinol Correxion Deep Wrinkle Fancy Flashing Lights and Mirrors Face Cream. I’d wanted to get some AlphaHydrox, which (as one might suspect) contains a stiff dose of alpha hydroxyls and did indeed make my ruggedly seasoned face look much better when last I used it. But couldn’t find the stuff at the drugstore on the way from the college to the Costco, so settled for the RoC, which boasts not only alpha hydroxyls but also a retinoid compound. It comes highly recommended by those who claim to be in the know. And it’s made in France. Oooooo! Must be good!

Like the mineral make-up, this set of three small tubes of overpriced face goop also came encased in steely hardened cardboard and impenetrable plastic.

Grrrrr…. To make a point, I asked the check-out dude if someone at the store would please cut the consumer-proof package open, since the last time I bought a package of make-up there I wondered if I was going to slice off a finger before I could get at the stuff.

To my amazement, he whipped out a box cutter and cheerfully sliced all the individual components free from their plastic prison!

Clearly, he was not dealing with the first person to make this demandrequest.

So. Now we know: whenever you are forced to buy items sealed in wretched impossible-to-open packages, ask the store’s staff to open them!