Drug Kingpins
Is your nose stuffed up? Sinuses clogged? Well get yourself down to the drugstore and get some Sudafed – or a generic like it – to clear you up. (As I recall this is the drug that the astronauts use.) You go to the shelf and – Whoops - there aren't any drugs there, just a piece of cardboard or plastic with a description of the drug to take to the pharmacy window. There you probably will need to show a photo ID and sign for the drug – and your picture is probably surreptitiously being taken. Your name is now in a database. Why, you ask. Well for those of you who are uninitiated, Sudafed and its like are used by your local meth lab to produce its illicit products; any one person obtaining too many tablets or capsules sets off alarm bells to the authorities.
Mrs. T is prone to blocked-up sinuses, a condition not conducive to scuba diving. So before we go to
As we are staying here for five months this year, we were chock-a-block with drugs, a whole roll-on full. Most were prescriptions for our common old-age maladies and were in their original bottles. However, there also was Mrs. T's box of decongestants. At customs eyebrows were raised. Several hushed discussions. A call is placed. We are informed that we are transporting a prohibited substance and the health official has been summoned.
Will we be prevented from entry? Will we be put in the slammer? (See the TV program "Locked Up Abroad.") Maybe they will lock up just Rebecca. The health person arrives. We have two weeks to obtain a doctor's prescription while they hold the drug. We tell them to just keep the package and we were allowed to go on our way. Phew! (Next year all the drugs are going in Dan's luggage! rt)
After we settle in Rebecca visited the doctor and asked about a script for a decongestant. He called around and none is available in the area. But he has a nose spray on hand that he gave her to use. And he gave us H1N1 shots as well.
Today, 12 November, the post office is closed. There has been a collection jar on the counter with a label about 'postal delivery people day.' We did not realize the office would be closed and when we went by today there were some deliverers out front with the jar. We could not quite tell from the conversation with another passerby if this was just a local closure due to the death of an employee or was a national holiday to honor all the fallen of the service. The other person put in some pesos with the admonition that they not be used for whiskey. (News flash: I just heard on the news about this national holiday.)
Well, we have not had time to take any pictures. Nice, sunny, upper 80s (31c). Mrs. T is going out to
Hope all is well with you. And looking forward to seeing some of you from WAY up north in weeks to come.
Dan and Rebecca
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