I found an allen wrench in my purse today. I know I used an allen wrench to put the patio furniture together on Sunday – but my purse was in the house at the time. I don’t need the allen wrench – we have three sets of them in the house and when you keep one it that comes with whatever you’re putting together it only ever fits that one thing. So unless you are a compulsive nut-job who not only keeps spare allen wrenches but also labels them – there’s no need or reason to keep an allen wrench. But I digress… I was searching for my daytime cold medicine in my purse when I found the allen wrench. I have cold – or really bad allergies – or the plague – I haven’t quite figured it out yet. Bottom line: I feel lousy. The daytime cold medicine helps a little – it keeps my runny nose stifled and allows me to have clear enough thoughts to function. I didn’t buy the daytime cold medicine – my husband did. It came in a package that had day and night liqui-gels. Daytime is orange – like the sun! Nighttime is a swampy blue black that looks like every drowning nightmare I’ve ever had. I don’t like the diurnal/nocturnal split of cold medicine. I inevitably end up with too many nighttime doses because I never get up in the middle of the night to take another dose once I’m asleep. But I chew through the daytime doses like it’s my job. I tell him – just get cold medicine that is time agnostic. Or buy just the daytime stuff. 24 years we’ve been together and we will have the same discussion.

Him: The day stuff will keep you up all night.

Me: No it won’t – it’s not speed.

Him: Then what makes it for day?

Me: Did you really think there was speed in them? The nighttime stuff has diphenhydramine in it. The nighttime stuff makes you sleepy – the daytime stuff doesn’t. We have enough benedryl to tranquilize a pack of direwolves – I’ll just take some of that if I need to sleep.

Him: Oh…

Every. Damn.Time.

Why don’t I just buy my own cold medicine you ask? Well the short answer is…I do. I usually keep it stocked. The problem is I am the only one who shops proactively. So when someone else in the house gets sick – I will proffer up the cold medicine and they will use it up and not replace it. Then I get sick – and there’s not a zinc tablet or a Hall’s lozenge to be had. And since I will fight being sick until I am almost bleeding out my eyes – by the time I need the medicine I am too sick to go get it. He’s a good husband – he goes for me – but he buys the dreaded combo pack for the nine hundredth time. I could build a diorama of King’s Landing with all the leftover nighttime liqui-pills we have running around in our bathroom closet.

Ever take a nighttime pill during the day? I don’t recommend it. Last time I did that I closed the door to my office so I could “rest” for a few minutes. I woke up three hours later with my face in a puddle of drool on my desk and one of my employees knocking on the door asking if I were alive. I think I had a post it note stuck in my hair as well. Not pretty.

Anybody need an allen wrench?