I FELT like I had purchased hard drugs. I was half expecting gun-toting armed guards to swoop down from the ceiling.
All I wanted was some painkillers - I wasn’t prepared for the Spanish Inquisition.
Once a month, I need painkillers. I really need them. I’m not interested in toying around with placebos, I need the good stuff.
You don’t want to see what I’m like without the good stuff - you wouldn’t wish me on your worst enemy.
And even with the good stuff, I’m best described as ‘tetchy’.
And so, when in work one day last week, I felt that old familiar tensing of muscles and lovely cold sweat which often accompanies such a feeling: I knew I had to act.
Usually, I am well prepared for such an occasion but not today.
“I must leave immediately or I will die,” I say out loud while putting my hand to my brow. Of course, no-one is listening to me.
Off to the nearest pharmacy I go, with a shopping list the length of my baby finger. I need three things: painkillers and other accoutrements that we women are forced to purchase.
The place is exceptionally busy; people are practically fighting for air. I queue as calmly as possible, trying to ignore the growing, gnawing pain in the pit of my stomach, which is now shooting down my leg.
“I need painkillers quick,” I think, “quick.”
Eventually, it’s my turn. I drop everything down on the counter and say: “Can I have some Nurofen Plus please?”
I opt not to scream “Now, bitch, give them to me, now!”
“What do you want them for?” she asks.
It takes me a second to register what she has just said. I cock my head to the left and look into her eyes just to see if she is joking. She’s not.
“Well, er, I want them for, ahem, you know, you know yourself.” I then tap the tampon box, which is on the counter, as I become acutely aware that there are a lot of men standing behind me.
I don’t know where this sudden bashfulness has come from, but I decide that I am not in the mood for the entire pharmacy to know I have my period.
Obviously, the woman behind the counter does not feel the same.
“Your period is it? Have you taken them before for your period? I mean, I can’t give them to you, new regulations and all,” she says, pointing to quite a large sign behind her warning me about the dangers of codine.
“You’ll have to wait for the chemist to talk to you. Have you ever tried anything else for your period?”
“Nothing else works,” I tell her quite tersely, and I start to get extremely annoyed with myself because my face has turned an unbecoming shade of beetroot.
Eventually, the chemist comes over to me.
“You want to buy Nurofen Plus do you?” she says, extremely loudly. “What do you use them for?”
“Am, you know, this,” I say, again pointing quite clearly to the box of tampons. I’m now convinced the people behind me have moved closer to have a look at the unfolding spectacle.
Paranoia sets in and I am also convinced the chemist has an extremely judgemental look on her face, which I do not appreciate.
She then grills me on why I use them and launches into a ridiculous spiel about the dangers of codine. All I take in is something about constipation.
My legs are starting to turn to jelly as the muscles in my stomach contract and detract. I grab the counter to steady myself and I feel like taking her by the collar, leaning in and saying: “Look, lady, I’m not buying heroin to feed to babies or anything, I just want some painkillers so I can go back to work. That is all.”
There is such a stand-off developing between us that I begin to think she isn’t going to give them to me.
The next thing I know she is making me sign a form. I’m so bamboozled, I don’t even ask what it’s for, but I’m hoping that by agreeing to do it, I’ll get my painkillers.
Eventually, she gives them to me, but not before she casts one last disparaging glance in my direction.
I grab the Nurofen Plus and practically run out of the place feeling like a criminal.
The bloody things didn’t even work.