A friend in need is a friend indeed....

It's spring in Tuscany, and for me that means allergy season.  Yippee.  I'm a snotty mess until the end of May.

So, seein' as how I had planned on doing some prevention this year, at the first sign of a stuffed nose I hightailed it to the village pharmacy.  Our pharmacist has a knack for giving you "just the thing that you need!", and 9 times out of 10 it's medicine to solve a problem that you didn't have.  I don't know how he does it, you know, being so consistent in making drug errors.  I used to think the problem was mine.  Maybe I was using the wrong Italian words?  Could it have been my accent that caused him to give me eardrops when I asked for eyedrops?   Everyone I know has had a drug story to tell about this guy.

Upon entering the shop, I tried scoping out the meds on the shelves myself, thinking my guess was as good as his was.  He spotted me, and smiled, and practiced his English greeting, so I gave up my Sherlock sleuthing.   I plainly and slowly asked him for an antihistimine that did not make me drowsy.  One that I could take during the daytime while driving a car.  "yes yes yes! This one will work for you!".  I asked if he was absolutely sure that this one would not make me drowsy?...trying to discreetly speed read the back of the package.  Ok.  Twelve euros for a box of 10 pills.   Just to be sure, back home I checked the instructions and it said the pills usually would not cause drowsiness.   I didn't like the "usually" part.

Yesterday at lunch I was having problems breathing, so I took one with my meal.  Afterwards, my husband and I went to visit friends who had asked for help in building a door frame for their house.  The men were building  in the shop, and we women went inside to chat.   I started feeling weird, couldn't concentrate on what she was saying, my eyes were droopy, I started yawning... the antihistimine!  I quickly explained.  Laughing, she fixed me up a hot tea to revive me.

We started telling our Pharmacist Horror Stories, each one worse than the other.   Then we talked about our weddings, whether or not we should organize a trip to Venice, and should we go to Ikea soon for new curtains?  (Her's were from Ikea and I had curtain envy).  She offered up lots of cute little cookies to eat, and I was in love.  I ate one of each, maybe there were seven kinds?   I told her I was thisclose to picking out kitchen tiles for the new kitchen remodel.  She said she would love to move permanently to the Canary Islands. 

I remember these sketchy conversations.  Did I actually ask how much she paid for her curtains, or did she offer up that info?  I think I might have drooled a bit while yawning, I'm not quite sure, because she passed me a napkin for some reason, and I wiped my mouth with it.  I'm thinking that I drooled.  Only a true friend would offer a drooling woman a napkin and say nothing about it!

I believe that we made a date to go Easter clothes shopping this week.  I'm probably going to have to call her and find out if this is a hallucination on my part.