Back in my illustrious youth, prescription pill bottles were everywhere. Feel something wedged in between the couch cushion? Wooo, there’s those Darvon I’ve been looking for. Guess I can finally wean off the Demoral. Step into the back seat of the car without looking and you were bound to crack some bottle of something. Probably a bottle of Valium, which they called Mommy’s Little Helper. Now all the hoops you have to jump through just to get an Xtra Strength Tylenol did not at all exist. You got your script from your doctor and you were basically set for life, or until something better came along. And what with whacked out suburban housewives and their husbands working in pharmaceuticals, something always seemed to be coming around the mountain.
The cabinet to the right of the kitchen sink was where everyone kept their stash, not behind a closed medicine chest, God forbid. So share and share alike was the motto, these brazen broads of Fairfield County. No need to pack anything. Everyone knew the drill. One night my mother opened our neighbor’s cabinet to find glassware. She was appalled.
Glasses are kept in the hutch in the dining room. Period.
Now thanks to this myriad of drugg’n, constipastion was a perennial problem, requiring one to keep a bottle of stool softeners. Not OTC either. In fact I don’t think any of the drugstores even had shelves. You just beelined it to the pharmacist.
The day our family Poodle found a stray bottle of stool softeners and consumed all of them will go down in infamy. Not for reasons of “serious accident” or “killing the dog” but for producing the finest backyard on the street. Green as green can be and thick and luscious. Slight stench.
And since everyone had to have everything everybody else had and since the grass was always greener on the other side, there were some pretty plum tuckered out pups.
But man, those lawns.