Gee, thanks, I Think.

I honestly can't believe we're all sick again. Surely there is a germ out there that we have some resistance to, no?

For this round of the common cold, Harry's gotten the worst of it and last night he walked up to us at 6:30 p.m. and said "I want to go to bed." We got him into his pajamas and let him sleep while the rest of us ate dinner and talked.

At about 8:30 I walked over to the drugstore to pick up some more cold medicine for Harry. When I went to the cashier, she scanned the box and demanded "WHERE did you get this?"

I was a little surprised, since, you know, when one buys items in a store you typically find those items on something called shelves. So that's what I said, plainly and clearly, so there could be no misunderstanding, "On the shelf."

"Well, the pharmacy is closed. How did you get this?"

"I picked it up off a shelf."

"From the pharmacy?"

"No, from the shelf."

"I'm going to need to see your ID. Do you have ID?"

"Is there a problem?" I asked, handing over my license.

"It's just that this is, you know, like, a controlled substance. You're not supposed to have this."

I must have looked really confused because then she clarified it for me: "You're only supposed to get this from the pharmacy as an over-the-counter drug. The pharmacy's closed so I just need to know how you got it."

"As I said before, I picked it up off the shelf."

"OK, I've entered your information into our database. You need to sign this," she said, pointing to a screen. Then she said "WOW, you look, like, really good for your age."