La Farmacía

Armed with cowboy boots, a cough worthy of tuberculosis, a load of self-pity, and half a llama on my back, I walked into the pharmacy. I pretended to browse casually, but the meager selection of dandruff shampoo and baby bottles couldn’t sustain me for long, so I approached the counter. Immediately, half a dozen pharmacists were staring me down, ready to help in any way possible.

A toz? I uttered weakly, my language skills inhibited by the cold outside, my cold within, and the irritatingly warm response from the Argentines. I watched in wonder as the petite Asian woman shuffled through a selection of white boxes before settling on two.

Where are you from? she asked, as the clan of lab-coated staff behind her all turned to watch. Upon learning my stately heritage, she nudged the bigger of the boxes forward, a gesture as if to say that since I’m American, I could obviously handle this one. Argentine jarabes don’t strike a lot of brand loyalty in me, so I half-shrugged and accepted it. It was, after all, my only option in this land of customized pharmaceutical advice. In Argentina, such matters are left to the professionals.

That settled, she scuttled behind the counter, emerging with a wide tan felt collar. “It’s a gift,” she said, thrusting it toward me. I looked at her questioningly, disrupted from gazing at the stunningly gorgeous young pharmacist in the back. “Put it on,” she encouraged, so I swept it over my still-wet hair and fumbled with its adjustment around my neck. “No, no,” she reprimanded, before zipping around the counter to tuck it into my sweater, turtleneck-style. “You must bundle up,” she said, not satisfied until my neck was fully swathed.

As I shuffled my selection down to the cashier and paid, the whole medical team shook their heads, clucking to themselves about those silly Americans, leaving the house without a felt collar. It was all strikingly similar to Graciela’s constant daily warnings. How dare I go bare-footed as I lit the stove? Everyone knows that colds and flus run rampant on cold kitchen floors, just waiting to bore into some unsuspecting, unprepared foreigner. For weeks, I laughed off her advice as mere folklore. Yet when the cough crept into me late at night, folding me in half with hacking, I considered believing. Now, llama-fied, my neck tightly clothed, cough syrup still clinging to my throat, I admit that maybe, just maybe, there’s truth in folklore.