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Friday, April 1, 2011

Taking pills

Here is another story about my family. There really haven't been as many of these as I had hoped because 1. I'm not home very many waking hours and 2.I'm terrible about writing them down and then they just fade into the general din of ridiculous that is living with my parents.

I found this story scribbled into the notebook I carry in my purse. The note was from mid-January. After January 12th, I'm pretty sure. I will try to reconstruct.

My dad had been coughing and my mother suggested cough medicine. Simple solution right? wrong. Despite the brevity of this story, I want to emphasize that I noted in my scribbles that the decision took over a half hour.

My mother comes out of the bedroom with cold and cough pills. She hands them to my father. He holds them at arms length dis-trustingly.
She returns to the bedroom and brings out liquid cough medicine. He does not reach for it. They both put on their spectacles, hold the medicine as far as possible away from their faces, and try to discern the expiration date. I assume that this is to make sure that we are not poisoning my dad.
We go through the 'is it a sell by date or an expiration date' debate and settle on sell by for the purposes of this exercise.
Mom exclaims "1/12!" and rushes back to her room to put the liquid medicine away.
My father and I look at each other and attempt to yell down the hall that 1/12 means January 2012 not January 12th of this year, silly mom. And besides, it's ridiculous that she's putting away the medicine that she believes is about to expire/just expired/has surpassed its shelf life instead of throwing it away. She doesn't hear us and comes back, stating authoritatively "you have to take the pills"
I explain, exasperated, the mix-up that she's made. She stares blankly at me.
"yeah, I KNOW what 1/12 means. That's why he has to take the pills. They expire sooner. The other stuff is good for a year. "
So, my dad wasn't allowed to take the liquid medicine- not because it was expired, but because it had way too much life left in it.

New Rule: You must consume whichever medicine expires sooner/has already expired. We don't want to waste the good stuff.

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