So last week I made another visit to Dis-Chem – the Makro of drugs and ointments. The shop has everything, it’s amazing. I’m not too sure about aisle 3 though, it’s got a whole lot of imported Chinese gifts and I can’t figure out how that relates to medicine or health or beauty but anyway, that’s trivial, moving on….

That Epic Kit List of 79 items freaked me out the other day. Do you really need all that stuff? Even freakier, I had a list of things that didn’t even appear on the list that we received from the anonymous, Mr-Uber-Organised-Epic-Kit-List-Man. So I had to go and buy more stuff.

Dis-Chem is like temptation sweet alley at Woolies, you just can’t help putting stuff into your basket that you don’t need.  Even though I was armed with my list, I started adding other stuff.

I made a big mistake by visiting the plasters and bandage section – I got the basic plasters and a knee strap which were on the list but then I saw these incredible “hot patches” for sore muscles which we needed, obviously. Whipped no less than 6 in the basket. Then I saw the “hot and cold patches” as well as the butterfly plasters, the sterile swabs, the stretchy plasters, the plaster tape, the non-sticky bandage, the sticky bandage, hydrofilm plasters and the cutest Garfield plasters ever. Got them all. Oops.

My list included items like washing powder and fabric softener, toner, hand cream and tampons – girl stuff. I even thought about the possible consequences to the nether regions after riding for several days. A bladder infection or thrush perhaps? Eeeek. This is a real possibility for lady riders because of the lack of blood flow and air down there. Delightful I know. Our darling petals are going to be so oxygen starved that they’re going to think they’re making an Everest Summit attempt.

Anyway, I realised I didn’t have any thrush cream in my stash of emergency medicine so I needed to get it from Dis-Chem. I was dreading asking for it. Dreading. Why can’t they just keep it on the shelves with the other stuff, like the Shampoo and Conditioner and the Vaseline? Why?

I was wondering aimlessly up and down the aisles, putting random products in my basket, knowing quite clearly that I was avoiding the whole asking thing but then I just thought screw it, they’ve heard it all before.

I checked that the coast was clear – I walked down the aisle with a confident go-get-em-attitude and got about one metre from the pharmacists counter when two other people simultaneously appeared. Shukakka! I stopped in my tracks as if I was playing musical statues at a kid’s party and the music had just stopped. I was trying not to look so stiff in my frozen stance so I defrosted the whole look and pretended to be intrigued by a range of geriatric pill boxes and dispensers in front of the counter.  I opened them, closed them, looked at the price, picked up the different models and almost convinced myself that I was going to purchase one!

And then I did as much of a peripheral view as I could without looking obvious and hooray, it was clear.  I plucked up the courage and asked with a confident voice if she had anything for THRUSH? Why the fcuk did I say that so loud?

The pharmacist asked two questions: “Is it for you?

No it’s for Casper the friendly frikkin ghost, who the hell do you think its for?

“Well, uh, yes, but its not for me now, it’s for me later, maybe if I’ll need it, I’m doing a race and uhm, its for an emergency, to put in my medical kit, if I need it.” I responded with the most ridiculous sentence construction ever.

Question 2: “Would you like capsules or applicators.”

Don’t ask me questions just give me the best one demmit!

Why can’t this just be simple like I say, “I have thrush” and then the pharmacist says “here you go, use this” and then I say, “thanks bye”.

I got the cream.

Eventually.

Halleluja.

And everything else that was on the list.

…And everything else that wasn’t on the list.

P.S  Hungry Bum is my team name for Epic – read more about it here.