We sat in the waiting room/pharmacy thing, periodically checking the multitude of hives on my skin, watching the other sunburned, awkwardly-dressed Americans enter with similar afflictions to mine. A rather…how you say…rotund couple walked in. The lady—let’s call her Mrs. Skandunis—seemed to have a similar skin rash to mine. She and Mr. Skandunis walked into the exam room. A little bit later, Mr. Skandunis walked out looking a little stressed. The nurse asked him, “How is she?” to which he replied, “Welp, she’s getting a shot in the butt so she probably feels like a pin cushion.” Dear America, this is why people hate us…no one wanted to imagine your fat wife with her mumply ass showing, syringe stabbed in there like a toothpick checking if an angel food cake is ready to take out of the oven…not only that, you said it like we’re the ass holes…a simple “She’ll be fine” would do, thanks. Poor Mrs. Skandunis.
I tried to figure out where the Skandunis family was from by identifying their accent. I decided they were from somewhere east of California and west of New York. Somewhere where they look at you funny if you ask where the recycle bin is. Somewhere where when you ask them if there is anything good to eat around here they say “Arby’s”.
I thought to myself, “Man…a shot in the butt…that would suck. After all this, at least I don’t have to get a shot in the butt”. I assumed the butt is where you have to give the shot if the arm is too jiggly to find the vein. The doctor finished up in the exam room and came out to check on me—he seemed pleased with the progress of the bumps and said I could go. I told him that the bumps were going down but I was still itchy. I was itchy enough to kick all of the inexpensive medication off the shelf next to me. No, this couldn’t be it…I needed something for the itch. He seemed really worried at first, then he composed himself and said “Well, let’s give it 10 more minutes…if you’re still itchy by then, we’ll give you another injection for thee itch…and if that doesn’t work then…pfft…that’s the strongest thing we have”. He should have stopped at the “we’ll give you something else” part.
10 minutes later, he came back to check. I told him the itch hadn’t gone away. He said “Ok, come back in and we give you another injection.” I followed him in and got my other arm ready for the injection. He said “This one is going to be in the butt so uh...” So much for my “I’m glad it’s not in the butt” rhetoric. I got my upper cheek ready for the injection and it went a lot quicker than the arm…I guess the butt is less complicated. He finished up and said I should feel “very comfortable” in the next couple hours. I could tell by the way my whole face relaxed the minute the medicine went into my bloodstream that he meant I would be completely out of it for the rest of the day. He gave me a prescription to keep the reaction from coming back I paid and the nurse had to go get some change out of her wallet and we were on out way. The remainder of the day was spent at Sayulita and could best be described as a haze. The next morning my body was clean and I was free from those damn bumps…at long last.
Or was I?
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