Sex and the City, Plan B and My Mom

Tonight my mom and I went to see Sex and the City and then we went to buy Plan B. Yes, the morning after pill.

I was inundated with a series of panicked text messages and phone calls while I lounged in the land of Manolos and Mr. Big.  I mean really, can’t she see there is nothing more important than two and a half hours of interrupting ankles to ears sex and Cosmo-fueled evenings?

As it turns out, said friend is out of a car and into a baby panic.  Who would have thought that ankles to ears sex and Cosmo-fueled evenings could lead to unplanned buns in the oven?  Funny how the lack of said car makes obtaining the necessary procreation terminating pharmaceuticals more challenging.  Somewhere up there God is laughing.  Hey, he’s got a twisted sense of humor too.  I mean who sense locusts to torment an entire civilization anyway?

And being the loyal friend that I am, I offer to obtain the magic pill and bring it to her in exchange for some cold, hard green to cover the cost of the goods.  A Sex and the City themed drug deal if you will. 

Mom and I steer the green Prius to CVS #1 and I ask pharmacist #1 for Plan B, “For my friend,” I explain, “She just can’t drive here to get it herself.”  And just like that, this decrepit, 80 year-old man shakes his head at my seemingly pathetic story (some where along the lines of, “So Doc, I’ve got this ‘friend’ with this problem…”) and curse the moral degradation of society and bemoan the kids these days.  “We’re out,” he tells me.  “And you need your ID.”

Attempt #1 thwarted.  Must have been a jack-rabit-tastic weekend.  Out of the morning after pill.  What is the world coming to?  I suppose we really are on a downward spiral fueled by Girls Gone Wild, Sex and the City and Spendi (or is it Speidi?).  But enough with the metaphysical ruminations on the moral status of humanity, I have bigger problems.  Like no ID to purchase the goods.  Shit.  Who would have thought I’d get carded for being under eighteen?

Which leaves me with no choice.

“Mom, would you mind going in next time?”

My mom is so hip.   She just laughs, “It’s not like they’re going to think it’s for me.  I can tell them, ‘I assure you, I no longer need this.’  And I’m not getting any anyway.  My sex life is pretty lame.”  Yep that was the line and she just crossed it.  I mean I know my parents don’t really like each other much right now but really mom, I don’t need to know how much you are “getting.”

And so we proceed to CVS #2.  Closed.  Shit.  And so we proceed to Walgreens #3.  Closed.  Shit.  Shit.  And so we proceed to CVS #3. Opened.  Score.

I file my nails in the green Prius with vanity plates that read, “THNK GRN” while my ultra-hip, cool-mom goes to get Plan B for my friend.  I wonder absently what the pharmacist thinks.  I suppose they really wouldn’t think she was out on the town getting rowdy and forgetting her Pill.  And I also suppose post-menopausal women don’t have to worry about forgetting the Pill and getting knocked up, even if they are out on the town getting rowdy.  Must be nice.

She pops out of the store waving the prescription bag triumphantly.  I think she is actually enjoying a day in the life of K Dubbs and the Drama Five.  As she recounts her close encounter with the Plan B kind (this is clearly her first rodeo) she eagerly informs me that, “They even took my CVS card.  That’s $55 worth of points!”  Great Mom.  You got Extra Bucks for your Plan B purchase.  Glad I could help.

I arrive to drop off my No Sperm Left Behind fertilization prevention kit.  They’ve got it down to one little white pill these days.  Handy.  “Thank you SOOOOOOO much,” the recipient snatches the bag and starts counting cash – but not before she pours me my own gin and tonic in a nearby, and questionably clean, coffee mug with a picture of Santa Claus on the side.   Several minutes later (it takes quite some time to count cash while chain smoking in one hand, drinking a gin and tonic in the other and counting cash with the other.  Wait, that’s three hands.  But let’s not split hands.  I mean hairs.  I digress) I have a wrinkled, nicotine-stained wad of ones, fives and tens to pay back dear old Mom.  Then she tears open the wrapper, pops a little white pill in her mouth and washes it down with a swig of gin and a drag on a Virginia Slim.  Keepin’ it classy.

And because it seems appropriate.  Or maybe because it seems morbid.  We toast. 

“To being, and staying, baby free."