Just reading an article by Daniel Stone in the National Geographic that he had recently written about (of all things) medicine cabinets. As a project, he had prowled and looked in many medicine cabinets as he traveled around the world, performing his chores. I too get around a lot but I never check anyone’s medicine cabinets. But not this guy. He reports that he went around asking people “can I look into your medicine cabinet?” He reminds me of the comedian George Costanza on Seinfeld who was a sneaky little guy who simply would ask to use someone’s restroom and then have a peek to see what they had in there. But this National Geographic guy actually asked to look into people’s medicine cabinets. And just about all of them said OK.

I remember, a long time ago at least two older lady customers asked me to look through their medicine cabinets because they couldn’t find a certain medicine. I did and I was good at finding it. I also was good at noting the piles of out-of-date pills, dried out Band-Aids and ointments that had expired long ago. As their pharmacist I would remind them to toss out that old stuff and buy fresh stuff (from me, of course) and then feel badly about It since my own medicine cabinet was just as bad.

But what did our reporter for Geographic find? Well, it depended on where he was. He found (I’m still surprised they let him peek) that folks in New York City and Paris, France had a lot of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills stashed away. In India people chose medicines made in India only. In Africa, folks preferred drugs from China (often unlabeled) while a Haitian woman had not a single pill in her house. She told the snooper reporter that if she needed anything she would simply step out and buy it from a street vendor. Guess there is no need for me to go put in a drug store there. In fact, the last and only time I stepped foot in Haiti I only stayed a few minutes since I didn’t like its looks or how it smelled. That was when I was still in the Navy.

The essence of all this points to this: In affluent countries people take a lot of medicines because they want to sleep more, wake up or be stronger or not worry about anything. And more importantly, they can afford these pills. So that would be a good place for me to put in a Pharmacy, I suppose. In less affluent places (such as in Haiti) the people don’t have the money to invest in such “foolishness.” Haitians probably need their limited supply of money more than they need more sleep or more virality or muscles. In fact, our medicine cabinet inspector said these people (with full medicine cabinets as well as those with no medicine cabinets) had one thing in common. None of them were sick. Dang it.

I did meet a Haitian lady once in Florida. She was a babysitter for one of my grandkids and she carried an alligator bag. I wanted to engage her in conversation, and I offered her a cold Diet Coke. She turned it down, saying, “I prefer mine warm.” She opened her alligator bag up and sure enough it was full of warm Diet Cokes. And she pulled one out and drank it. I wondered if she had a medicine cabinet but didn’t ask.

Have a good week, be sure and clean out your medicine cabinet and go to church this Sunday.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

cwaynebullaard@gmail.com