A plague has hit the history department and so far in our program five out of seven students, myself included, and two professors have fallen. Thankfully we were not made ill by fleas carried on rats, just that one dude who came to class sick. We’re a tight knit group but this takes the song lyric “if we go down, then we go down together,” a little too literally. We’ve missed class, professors have cancelled meetings, and many of us are blearily staring at our computer screens trying to type in between coughing into a tissue. Now you may be thinking, “surely having a cold in Ireland is the same as having one in the US,” but I am here to tell you it is not.
The nearest pharmacy, Boots, had one brand of oral cold/flu pills and the rest were various lozenges and nose sprays. Now I can order Advil Cold & Sinus online or walk my ass across town to the one pharmacy that carries it, but that isn’t gonna help me today. So, I have to make do with Boots to buy my box of Panadol and…there are 12 pills. You are supposed to take two every 4 hours, so that gets me like two days. This was the only size box they had and they’ll only sell you one at a time. Ireland, why?
Back home I can get a year’s supply of Advil in one go, but I can’t even get a box of medication to last me the duration of a typical cold. An Irish person once told me all the pill boxes are in tiny quantities because they don’t want people to take too many. To this I say: mind your own fucking business, Ireland. Sell me my 50 cold relief pills and then it’s on me what happens. All I ask is that they give me a choice whether or not to be responsible.
Much to my disappointment as well, Ireland doesn’t do lip balm. I’ve been desperately searching for some once I ran out of what I brought from home. I finally found one stick of shitty plain Nivea that is just not cutting it. I’ve been left out of the immunity to chapped lips and am now suffering. Dry lips and tiny pill boxes…Ireland is not my friend this week.
Leave a comment