"What whiskey will not cure, there is no cure for."

Here we are again: another nasty winter, yet another child to pass his germs along to me, and said child causing even less sleep than I had before thought humanly possible to survive. (Does that sentence make sense? I am not sure, and equally unsure that I care...)

And I would like to announce my annual bout of hurty ears/swollen glands/feels-like-broken-glass-when-I-swallow throat. (See this post. Wow, I was quite a good bit funnier when I only had three children, wasn't I?) Since I seem to have been pregnant for the past eight years (or at least close to it), and since I have had three different primary care physicians run away from the practice I went to, I have no doctor.

I briefly considered, while hauling three of my four children to the pediatrician THREE times in the past two weeks, begging my dear Dr R for antibiotics for ME (I don't care if it tastes like cherry instead of orange, even, see how easy I am? How could he resist?) but I managed to manfully act like an adult and just procure a thousand and one prescriptions for my germy, snotty, cough-y children.

After shivering through the night Sunday, I thought about the new urgent care center that just opened right across the bridge. The one that is on the way to the grocery store, the one with oodles of free parking right outside its door, the one with a doctor in attendance twelve hours a day. And this morning, after self-medicating with Motrin and Excedrin and whiskey-in-tea all last night, I hooked a quick left instead of continuing past Go to the grocery store and handed over my brand spanking new insurance card (MY co-pays went up this year, you?) and was seen by a bona fide doctor (although at this point I don't care if he only played one on TV). He poked around in my ear and said what every doctor who has ever done that says: "Huh. Adults USUALLY don't get ear infections. Oh. But, I see..." and wrote me a lovely scrip for amoxicillin. He also recommended judicious use of Sudafed, but hey, judicious schmudicious...

And know what? The words "Magic Swizzle" NEVER passed his lips.
Must be because he was older than 18, or maybe 'cause he was a REAL doctor.
Or maybe I am scarier than ever.

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*Irish proverb (natch)