Small-town life and industrial-strength kitty furniture

When you live in our area of the midwest, you have to be ready for anything that comes at you.

During this attack of sinus misery, I went to the pharmacy near my work to load up on drugs, cough drops, and tissue.  Standing in the aisle, attempting to determine what mix of symptoms listed on the packages I thought best matched mine, I heard an exclamation of profanity - "S---".

I glanced out of the corner of my eye and saw a woman walking down the aisle toward me.  Knowing my ears were wonky, I thought I might have misheard, but she said it again, "S---, you can't find a d--- thing!"  Now, I grew up in Wayne County, IL, and if there's one thing a native Wayne Countian knows, it's how to deal with Crazy.  Just like a bear, you don't make eye contact and whatever you do, do not acknowledge them, or you've had it.  She continued on around me, saying, "They" (you know, the infamous they) "don't want you to treat yourself!"  Well lady, sorry, you're riding this crazy train by yourself, I'm not getting on. I stared determinedly at the 48 different cold/sinus/allergy/flu/plague options.

She continues on down to the cough drops commenting, "You can't even find plain ol' Vicks cough drops in a box!"  And, a woman waiting for a prescription made the classic mistake when experiencing Crazy - she attempted to reason with her.  "We usually get Halls.  They have Halls."  "But not in a box!" she countered triumphantly.  Who knew cough drop effectiveness was activated by cardboard?

At this point, I decided Tylenol Cold Head Congestion would work just fine and took off for the tissues.  I needed cough drops, but I wasn't about to sacrifice myself.  I killed some time there, then peeked back to see if the coast was clear.  Nope, she had the poor woman cornered and was no doubt raving about the lack of mustard plasters.  Forget the cough drops, I don't need them because after all, if they don't come in a box, you might as well forget it.  She probably thought the ones in the plastic bags implant chips in your head, or something like that.

And in other news, during our pending vacation, the fuzzy people of the household will be limited to the back room.  We can't have them surfing the Interwebs and ordering movies while we're gone.  So, as an apology for their forced imprisonment, I thought it might be nice to get them a kitty condo/scratching post/cat perch, something to occupy them while doing time in the pen.  I found some reasonable options on one site, but then noticed the specs - maximum holding weight was 15 pounds.  If you've read Ramblin's blog lately, you'll know that won't work.  The last thing we need is to come home and find Copper knocked loopy from a collapsed kitty house.  So, either we need to find reinforced cat accessories, or somebody needs to stop eating everything on the carpet, including his brother's fur.