The farce..

Have been working round the clock lately. For a guy who gets 5 1/2 to 6 hours sleep on an average, this pushes it to the limit. Even the weekends have not been spared with the tether getting stronger.

That automatically means catching up on lost sleep during weekends, no blogging, hardly any time with the camera, missed phone calls to India, etc. etc. There is always an optimization list where when it tilts towards work, the home takes a hit.

For the first time in 3 weeks have been healthy on a Friday evening and it continued into Saturday evening. Then the sun came out, it was 75 F outside today, the Magnolias started flowering in the first week of February (they bloom only in last week of March) and the pollen must have been everywhere.. allergy season just preponed itself by two months..

Took a few allergy tablets and dozed off this afternoon.. and had the most vivid crazy dream of all. Please note, part of this dream could be related to the Bread Bajji's the wife made to take to a friends place last night. The Bajjis were delicious but yours truly may have had one too many and was feeling very light.. that is another way of saying too much gas!

Anyways, on with the dream that made me wake up in a sweat in the middle of the afternoon today..

There is some kind of an event that happens right around my bed. There are Military folks running around in gas masks, machine guns in hand. Folks dropping off ropes from helicopters overhead.. Medical teams swarming with gas masks.. something of a cross between the Andromeda strain and the Outbreak. They find me in bed, alive!

One military guy puts a gas mask on my face and says things I cannot understand and my dream shot fades away..

Next thing I know, there I am naked in an all white 10x10x10 cell of sorts still wearing a gas mask. A nurse walks in and tells me that all of Cupertino is suspected to be dead including my family. I ask her why and she says (I kid you not)..

You farted a nerve gas and killed millions. Somehow you are immune to it which is the only reason you are still alive. They thought it was a terrorist attack but when they found you still alive in the middle of it, they brought you to a local hospital. They did not know what was going on..

I ask her what happened and she says "the hospital had a great air circulation system. you farted again and took down the hospital, but that is where we realized what happened and now you are here"..

"We are still not ruling out a terror threat because people just do not fart nerve gas.. that too the most lethal agent ever known to mankind, unless someone fed you something knowing that your system with react this way!" and I go "my wife knew that making bread bajjis was probably going to be a bad idea but I don't think she intended to kill anyone"..

Then the Nurse comes back after some time and says "well a lot of the folks we thought were dead have been revived by an antidote we came up with by doing more research on your fart but you are still a danger to humanity"

Ask with a muffled voice "so what now?" and she goes "we are moving you to a small island off the coast of Maine where the wind blows only to the ocean. . you will be relocated there"

"will my family ever visit me?" I ask with tears and she goes.. "yes. they will be wearing gas masks. We also have a canary bird cage every 100 yards going towards the house you are in to tell us if the area is safe! and you will not be allowed to eat bread or bajjis for the rest of your life. the government is deciding if we should remove your intestine and bury it under ground in Nevada along with radioactive waste" and at that point..

I woke up!

A diet of too many science fiction and germ movies coupled with a diet of bread bajjis, tylenol allergy sinus and this is what you get!

At least you all get to laugh at this and maybe some upstart comedy director will make a movie out of this....

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Sudafed anyone ?

This is a follow up post on Guns anyone?

That post was targeting the ease of availability of Guns in the USA. This post is not about the Gun part. It is about the ease of availability part!

Recently I went to the local grocery store, which is where we usually pick up over the counter medicines. With two little kids attending two different daycares, our home can give the Germ labs of the Center for Disease control a run for their money in terms of the quality and quantity of microbes! It takes me eight to ten snaps to get one good photo with both Jr. and the little having no fingers inside their nose, mouth or ears. I ramble as usual (it is high time blogger has a feature which prompts me saying "you are way off the post title! Would you like to return to original topic?).

Anyways, the grocery store had little pieces of paper which resembled the cover of Sudafed, Tylenol allergy Sinus, Albertsons brand Allergy Sinus (compare to ingredients of Tylenol allergy Sinus), and every other brand of medication which had Psudoephedrine in it!

I went to the counter and said "How do I actually see the box with the tablets inside instead of the cover art ?", to which the dude promptly responded "We do not carry these medications out here Sir. They have been moved inside the Pharmacy. You take this paper to the Pharmacy and they will give you the tablet"

Me : But the pharmacy in your store closed at 7:00. It is 10:00 now!! What do I do ?
Dude : You have to come back during Pharmacy hours or go to a Rite Aid, Walgreens or Longs drugs..
Me : But this medication is "over the counter". I should not have to go to a pharmacy for this !!
Dude : Recently they changed policy because Meth (Methamphetamine) addicts are using drugs with ephedrine in them to make the drugs. So we are moving these inside!!

So, poor me trudges along to the nearest drug store and when I am at the pharmacy :

Dude 2 : Sir, are these tablets for you ?
Me : No
Dude 2 : Who are they for ?
Me : My mother in law
Dude 2 : Why is she not here ?
Me : She is sick with a bad cold and a congested nose. Also she is from India. I am the one buying the tablets for her.
Dude 2 : Can you show some ID ?
Me : Sure. Can I know why we are going through all this for a box of Tylenol Allergy Sinus ?
Dude 2 : There have been a lot of purchases of these type of drugs in our local stores and it has been linked to a Meth gang. So we have to take precautions!!
Me : ?????!!!!!!!?????

Mind you this happened just after our return from India (which is a few months ago)!
I am sure the drug gangs are still getting their supply from some online store in a different country which is probably shipping them Sudafed by the truckloads at discount prices, while I have to go through crap to get some "over the counter" medication for our home!!

The irony of this is that in the time it took me to talk to Dude or Dude 2, I could have purchased several guns, waved them at the dudes and got all the medication I need!!

The other irony is that if only all those allergy and cold suffering people had an association like the NRA, say they called it NSuA (National Sudafed Association) and spent enough money lobbying for the free and easy access to Sudafed or raised a hue and cry about their 'n'th amendment rights to carry their antihistamines and had slogans like "meth doesnt kill people. people who use meth kill people!" etc.. etc. maybe I could go and get allergy medication and nasal decongestants without the hassle!!

Why would anyone apply more rigor to allergy medication than guns ?

Beats me!!

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