The Numb-O-Wand

When I was a kid, ChupaChups lollipops were the most expensive lollipops you could buy. I only knew of one place that sold them and that was the local pharmacy. They were 50 pence. Consider that Cola-Bottles were 1 penny at the time and you’ll understand why, to a 10 year old, a ChupaChups lollipop was the high of decadence. Like Lucozade (read: fizzy sugar water believed to be the elixir of health), Chupa Chups were reserved for only the sickliest (or spoilt-rotten) kids.

Yesterday I found a new lollipop to topple Chupa Chups. It’s a lollipop that’s so special that you have to get a prescription from a doctor for it. It’s called the “Compound Tetracaine 1% Sucker” and it costs $30.

Ever one to outdo the missus, who just last week had a nasty case of Laryngitis and Bronchitis... I now have a cough, cold, aches that befit an old git and a nasty case of Strep. The doctor gave me a prescription for some antibiotics and a lollipop. This is what he said,
“…and here’s a prescription for a lollipop…”
And here’s what I heard,
“…and here’s a prescription for a fantastic new medical marvel. I’m going to call it a lollipop because, quite frankly, you’ll never be able to pronounce the true name for this orally administered numb-o-wand”.

I was excited. I’d never had a numb-o-wand before. I imagined that it’d shoot Strep fighting nano-machines down my throat or something. It didn’t even occur to me that what I had a prescription for was actually a lozenge on a stick that was going to cost me $30. Hmm, I’m finding myself repeating myself here. But, hell, $30 for a lollipop is daylight robbery!

Anyway, back in the local Walgreens, I gave the nice lady named Cranky Pitbull my prescription. She barked that it’d take 20 minutes to fill it. I said that I’d wait then immediately set off to explore.

It always amazes me what you can buy in stores like Walgreens. Back in the motherland, a Pharmacy sells medications and nothing else. Here they sell everything. Yesterday afternoon I found a set of “Real Stainless Steel Handcuff’s – padded for your comfort”. They were in the toy aisle.

The next aisle over sold magazines. I picked up a copy of Maxim for reading while I waited. I could have picked up National Geographic, but I chose Maxim because it had Hilary Duff on the cover and she looked hot.

On the way back to Cranky Pitbull, I walked down an aisle that sold all kinds of cool stuff like padded seats, heat lamps and personal massagers. I found it pretty funny that they’d sell anything called a “personal massager”. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling - so that’s what these corn fed Bible thumping Midwesterners call vibrators then, is it? Funnier still was the thought of one these grannies that I shared the aisle with actually buying one of these. “Ooh, I say, it’s a feisty little one, isn’t it?”. Knowing full well that all Grannies can read minds, I decided to move on before anyone got suspicious and I was subjected to “the look”.

With my curios-o-meter set to high; I set out to find something else to make me smile. If they had “personal massagers” then they were sure to sell other risqué items. I found one of these back at the Pharmacy’s Pharmacy. Just to the left of the Pitbulls hideout was a piece of equipment called the “dysfunction eradicator”. Actually, I can’t remember the real name, but I’m sure you get the idea. The picture on the box showed a plastic piece of tubing attached to a pump. A penis pump! Ha! “This is too much!”, I thought… And then I noticed that right next to it, and I’m not making this up, was a $29.99 paternity test.

I seemed to be doing a fantastic job of passing the time because a quick glance at my phone told me that I’d been wandering the store for 30 minutes. It was time to get my anties and numb-o-wand and hit the road. The Pitbull told me that it’d be right out and to take a seat. No big deal, I thought. I’ve got a magazine to read.

I sat down and started to read the silly magazine. It was then that I caught a “I hate you, you disgusting filthy pig” stare from a hairy-lipped tub-o-lard with legs. She must have seen the provocative cover and just couldn’t stop herself from passing judgment. What’s funny is that I wasn’t even ogling the girly pictures. I think its bad taste to do that in public. But when I caught that look, I opened her right up. Scantily clad Hilary in all her glory. Bam! I threw her a shit-eating smile for good measure and spread Hilary out on the chair next to me. This was, coincidentally, right next to where she was standing in line. I moved over to the massage chair (they were on sale for $99.98) and set the massage to the “oh yeah” setting to celebrate making her feel so uncomfortable. I guess it worked because she dropped out of line, suddenly remembering that she’d forgotten her Hostess cakes or something.

After a nice relaxing massage or two, I checked my watch. Much to my astonishment I had now been waiting for almost an hour for my meds. I went to the window only to find Pitbull gone. She’d been replaced a young guy who seemed confused about what I was asking of him. This isn’t uncommon. It seems that my English accent confuses a lot of people.
“What - do - you – want?” he asked as slowly as humanly possible.
“To… pickup… my… prescription…” I checked his face to make sure that he was following along before continuing. “I’ve… been… waiting… for… the… past… hour”.
Our conversation continued in slow motion for a few minutes until he suddenly realized what I was asking of him.
“Oh”, he said, “Wheatley is it?”, he said as he rummaged through a pile of bags. “I got it!”

This pissed me off no end, but I decided that I should let it go. My chances of being able to explain why customers don’t like it when they are forgotten seemed pretty remote. It had, after all, taken a matter of minutes for him to just to realize that I wasn’t from the planet Zod.
“OK”, he said inspecting the bags, “that’ll be 4.99 for the Maxim, 10 for the Azithromycin and 30 for the lollipop...” I wasn’t listening. I just swiped and paid.

It was on my way to the car that I realized that my numd-o-wand was really just a lollipop after all. It didn’t release nano-machines, nor did it have any cool drugs in it like Oxi-space-eyes or whatever its called. It was also the most expensive lollipop ever! I shook my head, threw it in the passenger seat and just knew that I’d be writing about it tomorrow.

Coincidentally, the lollipop didn’t work very well and tasted like a moldy cherry soaked in nasty. It numbs the whole mouth and not just your throat. If you like drooling on yourself, throwing money down the toilet and have longed to choke with every drink after it then I can’t recommend it enough. However, if you have even half a brain left then just buy the ChupaChups and call it a day.