Having trouble sleeping? That’s okay. Just read one of these relaxing bedtime stories for adults about the most mind-numbingly boring times I went to CVS for Advil.
1. The time I went to stock up on Advil even though I didn’t really need any
One winter day many years ago, I looked into my bathroom cabinet and realized that my bottle of Advil Liqui-Gels was running low. I didn’t have time to go to CVS right then, as I was in the middle of writing a long report for work about traffic light timing in Kansas City, Missouri. So I sat back down at my computer, but before I did, I took out a Post-It note, upon which I wrote “Advil – CVS.”
Several hours passed as I wrote the section of my report called “Yellow Lights.” I explained that three different traffic lights in the Library District of Kansas City are set to display a yellow light for five seconds—well within the federal guidelines of 3 to 6 seconds, but, in my opinion, too long given the relatively low speed of traffic flow—that occurs in said Library District between the hours of 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on business days. I concluded that section of the report, exed out of my Google Doc, and noticed my Post-It, which prompted me to recall that I had intended to spend the afternoon stocking up on Advil.
I bundled up, ate a rice cake to tide me over, and got into my car. There, I queued up my favorite song: “Don’t Look Back In Anger” by Oasis. The calm, pleasing sound of the Gallagher brothers’ voices caused me to nod my head to the music for the duration of the drive, until I eased my car into the third-best parking spot outside the CVS store.
The CVS thankfully had a well-stocked pain medication aisle. Advil Liqui-Gels are my preferred Advil capsule type, as I find them both aesthetically pleasing and easy to swallow compared to the reddish tablet form of the medication, which is rougher on the throat. I found I had my choice of 20-, 80-, or 200-count bottles, as well as a generic CVS version of the same. Though both are no steroidal anti-inflammatory pain relievers with an identical active ingredient (namely ibuprofen), I admit I prefer the brand name pills, as I have been purchasing Advil for many years.
I selected one 200-count bottle for a total of $24.99, reasoning that the expense was justified as I would not have to purchase Advil again for quite some time. I make plenty of money at my job as a data analyst for the US Department of Transportation; the price of the large bottle would not be a financial hardship for me.
Before I left I had the sinking feeling that I was forgetting something. Of course, I hadn’t written down any other reminders on my Post-It. But soon, a distant memory floated to the forefront of my consciousness. Something about…Kleenex?
Yes, I remembered: I had used the last Kleenex from the box in the living room two days before. Being that it was flu season, a restock was in order. I breathed an enormous sigh of relief that I hadn’t checked out yet!
I left CVS with a bottle of Advil and a three-pack of Kleenex in hand. On the way home, I couldn’t resist—I listened to “Don’t Look Back In Anger” a second time.
When I got home, I was excited to see my wife home early. And oddly enough, she was standing at my computer desk.
“I read your report on the yellow light timing in the Library District of downtown Kansas City,” she said. “It was really, really well done.”
Wow. It was shaping up to be a perfect evening, and we hadn’t even had dinner.
2. The time I thought I saw someone I knew at CVS, but it turned out to just be someone who looks like him
It was lunchtime after a meeting at my downtown office, and when I made a cursory scan of my upper-right desk drawer, I came to the realization that I had finished my bottle of Advil. Reasoning that allergy season was fast approaching (in fact, if I was honest with myself, it was already in full swing!), I committed to refilling my stock of painkillers to buttress my defense against the infernal sinus headaches that have come to define my Aprils and Mays.
I popped into my boss’s office to let him know that I would be out for 15-35 minutes on a personal errand, donned my polarized sunglasses to protect myself against the sun’s glare, and headed outside.
The CVS by my office is four minutes away on foot, give or take thirty seconds depending on whether I miss the walk signal at the corner—a signal with which I am intimately familiar, as I co-headed the Department of Transportation committee that oversaw that intersection’s traffic light schedule during the winter of 2018. Having made the light, I reached the drugstore’s automatic doors in record time.
Then, I focused my attention on the task at hand. There were several tempting displays at the front of the store, devilishly placed so as to pique my shopper’s eye—a variety of chapsticks at a price reduction of 20 percent, a new flavor of Pepsi with which I was not familiar, an as-seen-on-TV massager for the quadriceps. But given that it was the middle of a workday, I tore my eyes from these mesmerizing products and made for the painkiller aisle.
Little did I know, what would distract me from my mission was not a product from CVS, but rather a shopper!
Two aisles over, a tow-headed man in a distinctive olive-colored beanie strolled towards the pharmacy. I observed that he resembled, in several significant ways, a former member of my recreational water polo team by the name of Dustin Boehlke. For one, his fair hair was strikingly similar in color to Dustin’s hair. Further, he moved with a certain athletic gait that Dustin, a former college swimmer, also exhibited in his own movements. And, if my memory served me correctly, Dustin lived in an apartment not far from this very CVS location, making it certainly within the realm of possibility that he would shop there from time to time.
At this point, I had not even glanced at the metal shelf before me, upon which rested dozens of bottles of Advil, among which I would eventually have to choose. To do so would have felt rude, as if I was intentionally ignoring Dustin Boehlke and cared more about quickly securing medicine than maintaining the friendly camaraderie I’d developed with him over many sportive evenings at the YMCA pool. I decided I should go say hello.
As I approached the pharmacy line at the back of the CVS, however, I made a discovery that turned my presumptions on their head: The man I had thought to be Dustin Boehlke had with him a cream-colored Pekingese. Now, anyone who has spent any length of time with Dustin Boehlke knows that his allergy to dogs is not something he takes lightly; more than once we had to alter the location for our end-of-season water polo team party-slash-awards-ceremony on account of the venues being dog-friendly. To my mild disappointment, it was clear that this was not Dustin Boehlke. It was a different man who looked quite a lot like him.
Well, with that, it was time to purchase a 200-count bottle of Advil Liqui-Gels for my desk and get back to work. I had spent far too much of my CVS trip in a dream world wherein I was about to run into my old teammate Dustin Boehlke, and I needed to come back down to earth.
After I checked out, I took one last look at the tall blonde man with the Pekingese, who now faced me. His features were indeed nothing like Dustin Boehlke’s, but as I gazed at him, I wished him well regardless. After all, he had reminded me of a friend.
3. The time there wasn’t any Advil at the store
A few months ago, my wife and I took a trip to Portland, Oregon, where her family has lived for several generations. We were out to dinner with her parents at a ramen restaurant when my wife began to complain of a headache. She regularly gets headaches on trips, which we suspect may be due to the change in air pressure experienced during air travel. But whatever the cause of a headache, the solution is always the same: Advil.
Our ramen had not yet arrived, so I volunteered to run to the CVS across the street, selfishly hoping that perhaps by the time I got back, our food might be on the table and ready to eat. To be clear, I have nothing against my in-laws, and enjoy spending time with them. They are both former math teachers who enjoy kayaking and attending museums in their spare time; they are pleasant, open-minded people who are willing to discuss any and all topics, and never in an antagonistic or condescending manner. An evening with my in-laws is typically relaxing and even in some ways life-affirming. But there is a particular restlessness I often experience while waiting for food at a restaurant, for which a walk around the block is sometimes just what’s needed.
When I entered the CVS, I saw no indication that it would not be a well-stocked enterprise. The candy aisle bloomed with red and pink, as Valentine’s Day was mere days away. The Ke$ha song playing over the loudspeakers set an upbeat tone. I even saw an employee patiently helping an older customer locate the display of $1 reading glasses. But the painkiller aisle did not live up to the high standard set by the rest of the store.
To the contrary, the painkiller section was unusually meager—a three-by-four-foot swath of shelf real estate in an otherwise sprawling pharmaceutical aisle—and not only that, but much of the section was empty due to an apparent shortage of stock. I saw immediately that Advil Liqui-Gels were not an option, seemingly picked over by savvy shoppers who recognized their superiority as a pill type. But, troublingly, on closer inspection, there were also no bottles of Advil in coated tablet form, nor any store-brand ibuprofen.
There were multiple bottles of Tylenol available—not as many as one would expect, but enough to serve my purposes. Unfortunately, neither my wife nor I feel comfortable using acetaminophen, given that its power to reduce inflammation is poor, and thus the risk of liver damage it poses is not commensurate with its benefits. As for Aleve, it tends to upset my wife’s stomach, and aspirin is simply not an option, as for whatever reason, I do not trust it.
To say I was shocked would be an understatement, and a glaring one at that. Painkillers ought to be the bread and butter of any respectable drugstore, and yet this one had barely any available for purchase. I spoke to a CVS employee, who calmly informed me that the store would be restocked the following morning, and was at this time low on quite a few popular products. This was a satisfying explanation, but not a comforting one, as my wife was at the ramen restaurant in pain and I had no Advil to bring her.
The inability to provide medicinal comfort to my wife made me feel helpless and like a failure. I was dreading returning to the restaurant empty-handed, but then, as if on cue, a ding from my phone: I had received a text message from my wife. Opening it, a wave of relief washed over me, as she informed me that, in essence, she’d located two stray Advil 200 mg pills in her purse. She’d gone ahead and consumed these pills and was now confident that her headache would abate within the hour, thus absolving me of the duty to acquire medicine. Such a fortunate turn of events!
Crisis averted, I then left the CVS without making a purchase (though not out of spite—in the end, I understood and sympathized with their restock-related predicament). And when I reached the ramen restaurant, our food had indeed been served. What a wonderful moment in my life! I sat down, and we ate heartily.
