- Details
- Category: Current Issue
Just the other day I thought I would take a quick break from working on my dissertation and decided to run to CVS to pick up a prescription. I felt that a quick outing in running an errand would do my brain some good. I anticipated that I would be gone for only about 20+ minutes and left my water bottle behind.
I was deeply delighted to discover, as I pulled into the parking lot, that it was virtually empty. I was sure that there wouldn’t be anyone in front of me in the line and given the frizzy state of my hair reflecting back at me in the rear-view mirror, that I should also buy hairspray. As I entered the store and approached the aisle that would bring me to the pharmacy pick-up spot, my satisfaction seemed to fade. Something seemed amiss within my view, and I wondered if they had recently painted the pharmacy white, or checkerboard white, or retiled it with little white see-through squares? And that’s when I realized that what I was looking at down the aisle toward the pharmacy was the window wall of a daily 30-minute closure between 1:30 and 2 p.m. I tapped my phone to see what time it was. It was 1:31…
I was immediately disgusted at myself. I know that the pharmacy closes everyday between 1:30 and 2, but I had been so engrossed in my schoolwork that I hadn’t even considered that my well-timed mental break might have coincided poorly with a prescription pick-up.
I had 29 minutes to kill and wasn’t sure how best to accomplish it. I touched my head and quickly remembered that I needed hairspray. Surely there were other things I needed but I hadn’t planned on shopping and didn’t take my list. My overworked brain was mushy and I couldn’t remember anything else I should buy. I spent more than 5 minutes in the hairspray aisle, perusing all the hairspray options before selecting the one I always buy. I decided that I could buy a snack, so I spent another 5 minutes selecting a bag of sea salted popped in olive oil corn, which proudly displayed that there were only 35 calories per cup. It was 1:41 when I decided to head to the checkout counter to pay for my goods.
I didn’t want to drive home so I returned to my car to wait it out. I wanted to eat my popcorn but then I remembered that I hadn’t brought my water and what if I choked on a kernel. I checked emails. I turned up the radio and sang but then someone pulled up near me and so I turned the radio down and closed my windows. It was hot. I was frustrated that I hadn’t grabbed my water. At 1:52 I began to worry that if I didn’t return to the store and get in line that I would have waited all this time in vain, so I returned to the store and got in line. I was still the first (and only person) in line and so I texted with my daughter. Soon, I heard the sound of the white checkered wall of closure being pulled up. 2 PM! 2 PM!
Kathy Naumann, possessor of NATURALLY curly hair and the understanding that you can’t control everything!
.