That's Not My Bag, Baby

One of the meds I take in large quantities is called acyclovir. I was told that it's an antiviral intended to suppress any latent viruses in my body while my immune system isn't up to the job. Apparently we have viruses lying dormant in us all the time (hello, chickenpox/shingles!) that our immune system keeps in check. Without the immune system in top form, we need acyclovir to help do that job. Yesterday I was on the phone to the local pharmacy because the refill I got on my acyclovir contained different-looking pills than the last batch; I just wanted to make sure I had received the correct pills in the correct dose. The short story is that the pills were correct but made by a different manufacturer, hence the different color and numbers on them than before. Lesson learned.

The other lesson I learned is that you should always read ALL of the information on your prescription insert, because I made a horrifying discovery mid-discussion with the pharmacist as I blithely yammered away, blah blah blah, lah-dee-dah about "my last four refills": acyclovir is primarily prescribed for the treatment of HERPES. Yeah, THAT herpes.

Which is not to disparage anyone with herpes since lord knows that kind of thing can happen to anyone, but yo! I had no idea that while I was chit-chatting with the pharmacist about my 12-month prescription for acyclovir, or sending people in to pick up my acyclovir, or mentioning casually to random people that I'm on acyclovir, that what I was implying was that I have suppurating VD pustules on my privates.

Awesome.

I've decided, therefore, that there is only one way to disabuse anyone of the herpes notion regarding my good self: the next person who picks it up for me has to wear little round bandaids on the side of their lips and pretend his name is Haggis.