I’ve been here in the land of the large for a little while now, but I’m still amazed at the sheer scale of some thing. Take pharmacies for example…
I’m used to popping into Boots for a couple of plasters or a severely rationed pack of Ibuprofen. There’s not much choice and most of the good stuff even for colds and flu lies hidden behind the sadists at the counter who like to discuss symptoms VERY LOUDLY.
In America, packs of things are massive – you can buy jumbo pots of Aleve, Aspirin, Ibuprofen etc off the shelf. You also are rarely far from a chemist – there seems to be a warehouse sized one on every other block in Florida – presumably to cater for the legions of geriatrics and their complex medication schemes. They really are ENORMOUS. In fact – many are so big that they have drive through (sorry drive thru) windows, presumably so people can pick up their obesity medication from the comfort of their cars.
When you do venture in, you notice that there are WHOLE AISLES dedicated to conditions you weren’t aware were such a problem – I recently counted approx 20m purely dedicated to incontinence, but diabetes generally also has a vast square footage. Then there are the remedies for conditions I had never heard of. Such as Monkey Butt. I haven’t dared investigate exactly what this is for fear of finding out, but based on the other products in the general vicinity it has something to do with friction and/ or moistness. Eeuuuuw.
