Take two beauty products and call me in the morning.

Well today, I had the unforgettable experience of trying to buy drugs in India... no not THOSE KIND (tsk tsk... ), I just wanted some plan old fashioned headache medicine. I brought my whole home pharmacy EXCEPT I don't have any Tylenol or Advil. Today I had a headache and thought I need to pick some up. First I stopped at the grocery store thinking they might have some basic meds but they didn't. Then I went to this store down the street that clearly said on it's sign Medicines. Ah, I thought a pharmacy!! YAY!

My brief perusal of the shelves showed they had ointments and bandaids but not even a singe children's aspirin. I decided to ask the sales person for help. "Hello. I have a headache... do you have any Tylenol, or Ibuprofen?" I got a blank look and could hear the sound of silence so I tried the "universal" symbol for headache. I held my head and said "I have a headache". Ah the light bulb comes on... "madam over here" and I am taken to an aisle with face creams. "Face cream Madam?".

"No", again, I say "I have a headache" at this point as second sales person comes along listens to my tale and with looks at me with a face that absolutely glows with comprehension of my needs "Ah Madam needs Shampoo over here." Needless to say at this point my headache is getting worse and each time I explain what I need I gain another salesperson who is trying to help me. After we had gone thru every product that can go on or near your head, I have a crowd of 5 salepeople and I am doggedly listing off every possible type of pain releiver there is "Tylenol, Ibuprofen, Advil, Motrin, Aspirin, Bayer.... etc". I finally get a saleperson who take me to the back and whips out a tiny bubble strip of tablets that, on the back, magically say "Ibuprofen". Of course it's only a pitiful 10 tablets (geez no 300 pill bottles? After all that?) but I am happy enough just to GET 10 tablets so I happily take them up to the counter.

Ah... alls well that ends well, huh? No it's not over yet. They go to ring up my purchase and after two or three minutes of staring blankly at the screen the cashier informs me that I am not purchasing enough to buy the pills. It seems that my pitiful 10 ibuprofen are only 3.47 rupees and their minimum purchase is 10 Rupees. I say "Great get me 3 more of those strips and I will be fine!" Uh... No you need to buy 10 rupees (at this point I am shown a chapstick) if you buy this you will have 10 rupees. No I said... I can buy more 3 strips of the pills then it will be over 10 rupees. Anyway after about 5 more minutes I convinced them that to sell me more ibuprofen (which at this point I really needed) and headed home.