When I am feeling down I shop at Walgreens. As I feel the looming sense of the blues washing over me. I, in a trance state, pick up my car keys and shuffle to the car like a woman who is under mind control. Must.go.to.Walgreens. It’s really only a couple hundred feet from my house, so even when I am flooding by a-motivation I still can get there. The open 24 hour sign warms my cold, dark soul much like Campbell’s soup. Walgreens is a self contained little tiny universe that gives me what I need, even when I don’t know what I want. I can paint my finger nails, toes, or color my hair if I want. I often start in the anti-aging section and work my way through the store from there. Sometimes my visit to Walgreens begins and ends in the skincare section. This area of the store is for the aging, tired, haggard, female trying to regenerate their skin to the collagen levels of a 25 year old. Of course, the products CAN do this, I just haven’t selected the right one yet. Walgreens might just be the fountain of youth attached to a convenient store. Heaven.
When I become bored with anti-aging, I tend to move toward the hair dyes. I have been searching for my natural hair color since 2002. It’s out there, I know it. Unfortunately, I have what I call “emotional hair” and the colors that I choose never behave the same from dose to dose. I have had countless conversations with my strands about this, but I think my hair is a bit rigid and stubborn. My pleas to my hair to stop curling up in a pubic fashion never work. Instead it dryly taunts me in the mirror, stretching out towards to tub and shower, and maybe the toilet bowl in search of any moisture. When it’s really quiet I can hear it weakly whispering in a dry, parched voice something I can’t quite make out.
When I am looking for socialization I can choose from an array of people in the selected zones. I can talk to the photo guy, the cashier, and the cosmetic ladies! And with the drive through pharmacy, I can even do a drive by before even deciding to get out of the car and go into the store. If I have an embarrassing question about bodily functions, uncomfortable illnesses, or just want to talk poop and helpful products to make me poop, I will head directly to the pharmacist. I have been in the pharmacy section far too often, I hate to admit. I am beginning to believe that the store clerks tend to move the products I need to different isles of the store on a bi-monthly basis. When I sneak in to do a quick grab and buy, and am always forced to ask a staff member. And they never tell me where it is. It’s always, “‘I’ll show you”. I am not sure why, perhaps they sense my lack of ability to determine or understand directions pertaining to my right or left, or to count when they tell me the number of the isle. Or perhaps, they have also experienced the same medical conundrum and take pity on me in some weird way. The walk of shame with the clerk is always a welcomed part of my Walgreens socialization.
When I have enough of browsing, interacting, or exploring the educational zones of Walgreens. I take my wares and head to the cosmetic lady for check out, regardless of what I am buying. I do this, because the cosmetic ladies are always wildly supportive of any and all of my purchases. They compliment my selection, the brand, and my awesome taste in nail polish colors. I can’t tell if it’s their loveliness alone, or the rush of serotonin that is starting to course through my body that makes me feel that everything is just fine and the only thing I need to worry about is how my emotional hair is going to get along with it’s new natural color.