The Way I See It

“What does this cough medicine do?” I asked the drug supplier stocking the counter. I knew we wanted an expectorant for my husband’s cough, but I was curious about DM, or Dextromethorphan. “Which is better?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Ma’am,” he said. “You’ll have to check with our pharmacist.”

I went to the pharmacy and asked the person at the window. He pointed out that DM was a cough suppressant, which I would have known if I’d had my glasses on. “But don’t you need to cough to clear your lungs?” I asked, “Which is better?” Then he called over a woman who must have been the pharmacist.

When I asked her about it, she said, “Well, it is rather counterproductive to take a cough suppressant when you need to cough, so I guess that one is better,” referring to the cough syrup with expectorant. Then she said, “You’re the first person who has ever asked that.”

Now where have I heard that before? Couldn’t have been at the airport when I took off my socks as well as my shoes for security. “Well, it says, ‘lose the socks’ on the paper in the bottom of the tray,” I explained when the attendant said, “What are those socks doing in there?”

“You’re the first person that has ever done it!” she exclaimed. (Turns out it was an ad for a Florida beach vacation!)

Or when I read the sign at security that said to have your computer removed from your carry-on to have ready to place on the belt, and I followed directions. When the security guard saw me carrying the computer, he exclaimed, “You mean you actually read the sign? You’re the first one that ever has!”

So I’m naïve. Or do I just march to the beat of a different drummer? When our special speaker at church was doing a sermon on “laminins”, the cross-shaped protein substance that holds our muscles together, he called it “The First Super Glue”. All I could think of was, “We are cross-stitched together!” When you think about it, though, it is pretty accurate: If it were not for the benefit of salvation from Jesus’ death on the cross, we would be fraying at the seams!