Worst.Day.Ever.
Harlow
Ican pegthis entire catastrophe on my incessant need to find a man. Well,thatand my incessant need not to sound like a loser to Raven, my old college roommate who’s setting the advertising world on fire, jet-setting, meeting amazingly gorgeous underwear-clad men while I sit in a cubicle all day selling windows. Okay, I don’t actuallysellthe windows—I place orders, take stock, pick up the phone, and make sure the barista at Starbucks gets everyone’s coffee correct. Right there is the difference between Raven and me. We both spent four years at Whitney Briggs University majoring in business, both graduated with honors, and here we are three years later—on extremely uneven playing fields. But that’s beside the point. I spent the bulk of the morning exchanging spastic text messages with her because this just so happens to be the shittiest, shit,shitday ever. Like for instance, my shitty car needed a jump just to get me to the shitty urgent care clinic this morning. And now I’m on my way to pick up a prescription for this shitty sore throat—which up until an hour ago I thought was a complete work of fiction. But after that, I plan on commandeering this shitty day into port by way of crawling back into bed with a quart or two of ice cream. Cherry Garcia. Lots and lots of Cherry Garcia. The only bright spot in this day is the fact my landlord is finally getting around to inspecting that leak above my closet. No more moldy running shoes, no more sopping wet yoga pants, which means I’ll have to refresh my bucket full of excuses to evadethegym.
“Next, please?” The pharmacist tech leans over the counter before flagging me in. I’ve had my feet firmly planted on the courtesy mat while the sweet gray-haired granny in front of me got a refill for her gout. The courtesy mat itself consists of a pair of shoeprints with the words,Please, wait here. You’re next! Respect patient privacy.printed above it.Although the granny in question plagued with a merciless bout of gout also happens to be a bit hard of hearing, thus the amplified expository on the state of her dilapidatedhealth.
I step forward to the counter and casually glance back before doing a double take as a tall, dark, and handsome knight in shining pharmaceutical armor takes my position at the plate. He’s somewhere in his twenties, about my age, within bedding range for sure. He has his light pink Polo on standby for margaritas with the collar up, and he’s exuding that whole eighties yuppie vibe I find so startlingly sexy. Damn. Why couldn’t he have stepped up sooner? We could have had a rousing conversation regarding our impending first date rather than me getting a brief yet comprehensive education on all thingsuricacid.
“Name?” the pharmacy tech barks, and I come to. She’s tall and wiry, and her hair is trying quite successfully to escape that bun she’s swept it into. Her glasses hang low on her nose, and they magnify her eyes the size of silverdollars.
“Harlow Hartley,” I say it loud and clear in the event the smoking hot collar popper has his radar up. He’s a preppy for sure, but who doesn’t like a spin in a spanking new Beamer once in a while? Emphasis on thespanking. I graze my teeth over my bottom lip and give a little wink his way. He perks right up and smiles wide, exposing a rather deep dimple embedded neatly in the base ofhischin.
Dimpledchin.Huh.
I spin back around as the pharmacy tech comes back to the counter with a small white bag that looks every bit like it should be coming from a bakery rather than this treasure trove of diseases. Although, to be fair, this treasure trove of diseases happens to be planted smack in the middle of Kragger’s Grocery Store in the heart of downtown Jepson, just a few measly blocks from the disease-riddled hovel I call home. Have I mentioned Raven lives in a high-rise uptown? She has the world eating out of the palm of her gilded little hands, and she damn wellknowsit.
I check my phone to see if she’s responded yet. I told her all about the fact I called in sick with a sore throat, and my boss over at Windows-R-Us politely informed me I’d need a medical excuse to return to work—thus, the impromptu visit to the urgent care center. Only there wasn’t anything urgent about it. That whole sore throat thing was actually more of a hangover thing due to the fact I spent last night trolling the Black Bear Saloon, my old college hangout where I lost many a dollar trying to make the frat boys holler. It turns out the Black Bear is still brimming with frat boys, only now they all look like they should be running around on a middle school playground. How the hell did I get so old so fast,anyway?
“So, have you taken this before?”SALLY, as her nametag shouts my way, drones the words out as if they had the power to put both her and me tosleep.
“I’m sorry, what?” I straighten a moment, trying to keep myself from goinghorizontal.
“I said, have you taken this before?” Her voice rises several octaves the same way it did for poor Gout Granny. “Maxie Gel? It’s a vaginal ointment to treat bacterialvaginosis.”
A shadow appears to my right, and it’s Preppy Frat Boy leering at me with that come hithersmile.
“Shit,” I hiss under my breath before returning my attention to SALLY, the bearer of bad vaginal news. “I’m sorry. There must be some mix-up. I saw the doctor this morning for a sore throat. I promise you, it’s the only part of me that he burrowed his fingers into.” I turn to the Greek god to my left and whisper, “Wrongorifice!”
“Whelp”—Sally demonstrates her strong command of the King’s English—“that’s what he gave you. This ointment needs to be administered for seven nights. Now, there are only five injectable applicators. You’ll have to reuse two of them. Be sure to clean them good with soap and water before injecting them into yourvagina.”
Oh my hell. I shrink about three inches. My ears are still humming from the fact she’s left her voice at top volume. It’s becoming increasingly clear that deep down inside, Sally is a bitch from the bacterial circleofhell.
She juts her chin out. “Do you need the pharmacist to come up and demonstrate how toinsertthem?”
“Shit!” A bite of heat lights up under my arms at once. “No, for God’s sake, no.” I glance to the cute preppy who has suddenly decided this is a fine time to take a step back. I lean over the counter with a heated rage coursing through me. “I’m good,” I assure binocular eyes before she drops trou at the pharmacist’s command and shows me howit’sdone.
“Are you sure?” She reaches down and hoists up a plastic model of the female lower forty-eight, and I die a small pink plastic vaginal death. As if her megaphone of a mouth didn’t echo throughout the four corners of the grocery store, she now has visuals for the hearingimpaired.
I glance back and note the line behind me is swelling with ogling men of all ages. Figures. And to think, I actually hit a bar last night in hopes to find one of these mythologicalcreatures.
I turn back to Sally and glare at her a moment. “I’ve used the aforementionedointmentbefore. I’ve actually used Monostet, so I’mfamiliar.”
“Oh, Monostet is foryeastinfections.” She blasts those last two words through her vocal cords in the event the astronauts up on the space station hadn’t been clued into the sad and desperate state of my vagina just yet. “What you have isBACTERIAL.”
Dear God, talk into the loud speaker, whydon’tyou.
I give a few tired blinks as I struggle to hold together what’s left of mysanity.
“Oh?” I try my best to sound ultra-cheery, but that sarcastic scary bitch that lives deep down inside of me is about to unleash—and heaven help poor SALLY if she does, because that scary bitchy side of me loves to bypass the jugular and head straight for humiliation. “And here I thought I’d give up on my favorite sugary feast.” A forced laugh steams from me, sounding far more maniacal than it does cute ex-sorority girl. “Chocolate.” I turn to Preppy God and mock giggle. “I guess I’m back in business!” Whew. It looks as if that sarcastic scary side of me has decided to sit this one out. Lucky for both Sally and Preppy Frat Boy—and mostlikelyme.
That dimple in his chin inverts ten times deeper, and on a whole it’s becoming obvious I have no way to read a dimple-chinnedman.
“No, heaven’s no. It’s not from sugar.” Sally chortles along with me. “It’s fromfecalcontamination.”
Killme.
“Usually wiping back to front.” She wags a finger. “Somebody doesn’t know how to wipe herbottom!”
