“So how much Sudafed® can I buy at once without setting off any red flags?” is a question I was sincerely looking forward to asking. “It’ll be fine,” Nick told me. “They’ll see you’re going out of the country right after the purchase, and they’ll figure it’s nothing.”
Honestly, if sarcasm were out, I don’t know that the two of us would ever be able to speak to each other at all.
Unfortunately, the fine State of New York has outwitted me once again. When I wandered into the pharmacy to stock up on American OTC meds for poor, sniffly Nick, I discovered pseudo-Sudafed® on the shelves, and stupid little “Please take this card to the pharmacy to purchase” cards where the real Sudafed® used to be.
As much as I was disinclined to take the stupid little card to the stupid little pharmacy window, I was about to do so when I noticed that Sudafed® has taken advantage of their supposed notoriety to jack up their prices enormously. I mean, maybe I’m just out of touch with the going rate, but I cannot imagine why real Sudafed® is more than twice the price of fake Sudafed® (not generic; it just uses a different active ingredient, which they swear is wonderfully effective).
Attention, Sudafed®: no one is fooled into thinking that your original product is behind the pharmacy counter now because it is such a terrifyingly potent nasal decongestant. It did not suddenly become worth more money just because it became more annoying to get; if anything, you should be dropping your prices. What you charge for your fake decongestant? That’s about what a decongestant is supposed to cost.
Nick, honey, by the way: I’m bringing you fake Sudafed®. I’m sorry, but I’m taking a moral stand here.
So, off to Paris I go, OTC meds and Airborne® in tow. Hopefully Nick will have a phone line by Friday–it has been delayed for three months, but now that France Telecom has been sued for a fortune for just this sort of thing, they’ll be happy to come take a look at his line. Come to think of it, there is absolutely no chance of a working phone by Friday. I’ll be calling my boyfriend on calling cards for the rest of our natural lives.
And with the fake Sudafed®, I probably won’t be able to understand a word through the congestion.