Plunge taking

I went to Walgreens today and talked myself into purchasing Alli, the weight-loss enhancing whatever. Is it a drug? It's FDA approved, but non-prescription. I must be out of my mind because I just don't do diets, but I feel like I eat fairly healthy and reasonably and I still don't lose weight. In fact I gain it.

When I saw my doc I told her I was thinking about trying it and she said to go ahead if I wanted. She said she was thinking about it too which gave me a little comfort for whatever reason. My doc is my age, an old friend, and is probably ten pounds overweight or so. She's a lot taller than me so she carries it better than I do.

Anyhoo, I go to Wally's to get the Alli and also to pick up some other prescriptions for R. (Side note: R got his blood tests back this week and saw his doc and his numbers are amazing. His doctor was overjoyed. He lost weight and brought his glucose and cholesterol down. I am thrilled for him and also just a little pissed that he decides to do something and then does it, making me feel like a lazy bum.) When we go into the store, I whisper to R that if I see anyone I know I am not buying the Alli. He says, "What?" because he is getting hard of hearing I swear, so I repeat it a little louder. He said okay. The Alli is behind a locked plexiglass door on the vitamin and diet supplement aisle. I have no idea why it's locked up. Is it dangerous? Addictive? Extremely expensive? Yeah, it's expensive. I'm pleased that no one else is at the counter, so we tell the pharmacist's assistant that we want some, and rather than go unlock the door she gets on the store loudspeaker: "Manager to pharmacy for customer service!"

I'm trying to shrink into the background in case anyone is looking our way, when a 16-year old store manager walks up to us to see what we need. I tell him we want the starter pack of Alli and the thought running through his head (I imagine) was "Another fat old lady trying in vain to lose weight...sigh...this job sucks!"

He opens the door and gives me a very expensive starter pack and we take it to the counter in the pharmacy. We are also purchasing three prescriptions for R and a bottle of fish oil capsules that his doc wants him to take now. A Reader's Digest and a package of Werther's Originals would have made the old-people-out-shopping scenario complete, don't you think?

We pay for our stuff and go out the front door. R walks through the security doors with our sack and the alarms go off. He returns to the front counter, where the clerk takes everything out of the bag and tries to deactivate the security chips. There is my Alli, on the front counter, being dragged across the deactivator again and again. When she finishes, we go through the door again and it sets it off again. Whatever. We leave with our alarm inducing package.

Now I'm home and I've looked over part of the 700-page pamphlet that the kit included. It may just be too hard for me. I don't like anything hard, but it was expensive enough that I'm going to try. My doc did tell me to start it on a weekend and stay near the toilet. Hmmm.