Sex, Drugs and Stores.

“We should bring him to the hospital.”

That's my father delivering the most over-used sentence in our household. It’s like a default statement whenever there’s a health emergency.

Here’s the scene: My kid has low-grade fever, mild migraine, has vomited at least once and possibly a urinary tract infection. It wouldn’t have mattered though if he was nearby but he was 120 kilometers away, in rural Antique with just his father, his aunt and a handful of household help. The nanny we recently hired for him proved to be hopeless as she could not read nor write and is practically useless around mobile phones.

The hospital comment sealed it off. The kid’s father, a level-headed, clear-thinking, very organized architect, announced he’s given up. He couldn’t take anymore of the flood of instructions that came first, by a series of phone calls and then, by a deluge of sms messages, from three different people – my father, my mother and me.

I apologized for marrying him into a family of hypochondriacs.

But I cannot blame my parents or even myself for reacting that way. He’s, after all, the only boy of the two grandkids that our family has. And he’s gonna be fulfilling my failed dream of becoming a rock star. 

That’s not the only thing that happened. My day—no, my week!--has turned into a compendium of health problems (my maternal grandmother had aneurysm 4 days prior to this, and days before that, my paternal centenarian grandmother suffered from pneumonia). What made it even worse was that earlier, the people at two major drug store chains refused to sell me Vagi-Hex or Monistat.

One drugstore sales guy (NO, I refuse to call them pharmacists as all they do is facilitate the selling-buying of medicine in the drugstore something that even my mother’s assistant can certainly do and he’s not even finished college), upon hearing vagi-hex turns around and says to his female co-saleslady:

“We don’t have Vagi-hex, no?”

Female co-saleslady pursed her lips, nose and eyes together. I watched as her face crumpled into something like a pinched dimsum top. She thought for 2 seconds and then shook her head.

Drugstore sales guy’s got his computer right in front of him and he didn’t even check.

“We don’t have it,” he told me with finality.

“I—“ I wanted to ask him to look further but he’s turned his back on me and was already entertaining another customer.

So I went to another drug store chain. This one is well-known for their slow service, but surprisingly they were serving only one customer when I walked it. People have started to realized this drugstore is not worth their money.

“I need Vagi-hex,” I told the saleslady. I watched her enter it into the computer. I swear I saw her punched a “C”.

“Vaaa-gee-hexxxxx,” she muttered, as she moved along her computer keys.

Nothing probably came out as she moved to another computer and did the same thing: “Vaaaa-geee-hexxxx.”

This time I wasn’t able to see her type. But I swear. She punched a “C” the first time.

“We don’t have it,” she told me.

“Or Monistat,” I told her, getting irritated.

“Monistat?”

Yes, monistat! Christ don’t you people see a gynecologist ever? I swear yeast-infection is so common and you look like someone who’s at least gotten a yeast infection. 

“Mowww-neees-tat.” She gave her computer a quick type and said, “We don’t have that, too.”

That’s it.

“You mean by saying you don’t have it is that your drugstore doesn’t carry it or that you’ve ran out of it?”

“I mean, we’re out of stock.”

Now, that’s a classic. The default statement of dumb salesladies.

My friends and I tried that trick before. We went to a record shop, and started looking for the (yes!) cassette tape that we’re meant to purchase. Expectedly, the saleslady started trailing us as we go from one stall to another lest we’d steal their goods. So one of our friends faced the lady and asked for a certain record. And because that record we asked for was super indie underground in our side of the earth, all we got from her was: “Oh, we’re out of stock.”

Then my friend turned around, grabbed the cassette copy of the very same thing she asked from the lady and gave it for her to peel off the security sticker.

The lady at the drugstore gave me a weird look for asking her to explain further and for asking the question in English. I did not mean to sound so elitist, as I surely did not look like one that moment, but dude, I was beyond offended. She gave me a look as if I’m asking for a box of male condoms and not a box of vaginal prophylactic tablets (yes, that’s precisely why, at 31, I have not yet tried buying condoms myself). I’m sorry I looked like an 18 year-old college kid, especially with my books and my backpack (what the hell’s my business carrying a Frank Conroy book to office, anyway? And an Iraq memoir?) but my ring was a total giveaway any moron would have understod: I’m married and I’ve had hundreds of orgasms already, okay?

This second drug store is the same drug store that refused to sell me pregnancy test kit for reasons only a bigot would understand.

This same month 5 years ago, suspecting I was pregnant I went to this drugstore to buy a kit. It so happened that my equally baby-face male friend decided to tag along. So now what do we have here? A couple of co-ed college kids who are in fact, in their late twenties, and already working as underpaid research assistants in the university. But no, this pro RH-Bill saleslady went by her hunch that we are promiscuous, unmarried university students living off our parents’ money (okay, so the unmarried part was right, but that does not give her the right to decide what’s best for me. Especially when I can pay for my own pregnancy test kit.) and told us,

“Oh, we’re out of stock of pregnancy kits.”

Baby-face Male friend chuckled and said: “Wow, I'm amazed. Everyone in Iloilo is so fertile.”

“I can’t believe everyone decided to suspect they were pregnant at the same time I did,” I told the lady, giving her an over-friendly smile.

“I will ask my supervisor,” was her reply and left to the recess of her supervisor’s cubicle.

Smart girl, she understood my humor, even if I wasn’t really trying to be funny.

Male friend said, “Now, you should really be proud. They all think you’re in high school.”

After what felt like 10 years, the supervisor and the saleslady came back to the counter and told me the kit is P65.00. She’s put it at the counter, and is ready to be packed.

The kid, said the level-headed, clear-thinking, very organized architect father (LHCTVOAF), seemed to feel better after his unexpected vomit episode.

“He’s back to his usual, hyperactive self,” he said, now a lot calmer. I half expected a reply teeming with annoyance. If there’s anything this person hates, it’s ruining his schedule and making him do something close to impossibility.

When I called following a mild panic over LHCTVOAF’s announcement that he doesn’t want to take any more instructions, LHCTVOAF informed me that the kid was on a “time-out”. Apparently he’s vomited all the bad energy and he’s back to being a plain non-sick, unbelievably distracting kid.

And I’m quite relieved. I apologized again and gave LHCTVOAF what is now, a clear and easy set of instruction. I don’t mean to be sexist here, but really, nothing beats a woman’s instincts when it comes to handling toddler emergency crises. Much as I don’t want to, but my husband and I know that in situations like this when both of us are present, the better one takes over--me. He’s more of like a supervisor who scolds me when I go overboard, like this one time I insisted on bringing the kid to the hospital over an HFMD (hand-foot-mouth disease—totally manageable and it’s not even super contagious to adults. All you gotta do is manage the kid’s fluid intake) attack.

I clocked in the final instruction at 9:45 pm, and was told they’re in the middle of the pre-sleep reading routine.

Tomorrow, I would have to do some night travelling because the kid’s been asking for the nth time when I’d be coming over to visit him. And I don’t think this coming home could wait for one more night.

FIN.