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flu, day nine
I'm standing in a long line at the cash of the pharmacy, holding only two bottles of cough syrup, when an older woman comes up and asks if she can butt in line in front of me. I stare at her non-committally, hoping she will recognize, just by looking at me, just how pathetic and sickly I am, and how much I need to leave the pharmacy as soon as possible and crawl into bed. I look terrible and this would be easy to see, but the woman is more wrapped up in her own issues. She starts whining at me about how she is too hot, she has been in the store too long, she doesn't feel well, and she just left the line so she could go get something, look, she left all her stuff on the shelf, here, next to me, couldn't she please, please cut in front of me? She won't shut up, even when I roll my eyes and nod, waving her in front of me. I am too meek but I don't even want to deal with her.
But instead of shutting up she cranks up her whining a notch - I think she is maybe having a hotflash - and narrates as she fishes for her money in her purse and gathers up her armload of purchases, and is all in a tizzy when the first cash register opens up and she is not ready. I am standing there thinking that probably the whole line of people could have gone through while she collected herself, and probably everyone else is thinking the same thing and hating me for being such a pushover, but I just stand there and wait for the woman to pass in front of me because I am too weak and fluish to even try to formulate an argument. Finally she makes her way to the first cash and starts yammering on about some product to the man at the register. Luckily, the second cash opens up before I can faint from frustration and I am out of the pharmacy with my two bottles of cough syrup before this woman has even had any of her stuff rung up. I feel smug and relieved, but a little annoyed that the woman has not even noticed. In retrospect, I wish I had coughed on her.
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