[QUOTE=CairoCarol]
Heh heh. For years hubby and I lived in out-of-the-way locations where we couldn’t buy condoms and many other useful drugstore items. As a result, when we’d be back in the US loading up our suitcases with stuff to take back, we’d end up with drug store shopping carts like this:
24 extra value-pack boxes of condoms
15 boxes of tampons
6 tubes of lubricant
4 packages of Monostat
6 boxes of Ex-lax
…etc…
Of course, that would be a two-year supply, and some of it was “just in case” stocking up on the off chance I did get a yeast infection or something, but still.
I wonder what the people at the checkout counter thought.
[/QUOTE]
Heh. Reminds me of the 3-day orientation period before leaving to study in the Soviet Union in 1989. All 40 of us were in a small town in upstate NY, the kind of place with one intersection, a gas station, a small grocery, and a pharmacy. The program had rented out a place normally used as a Christian retreat center for our stay there (for language testing, etc.)
Now 1989 was the tail end of perestroika, and many, many common consumer items were very hard to come by in Russia. In fact, on the last day of orientation, an entire session was devoted to discussing what items must be acquired at all costs before departing the U.S., and condoms were chief among them; our group director (who married his Russian fiancee that year) informed us that even if we weren’t planning to need them, they would make great gifts for our Soviet friends and/or barter items, and nobody would be embarrassed. Also, he told us that Soviets screwed like bunny rabbits,
and that STDs were rampant due to the lack of condoms and anonymous testing.
After that session, we had free time for the afternoon. So all 40 of us tromped down the road to the tiny one-room pharmacy and COMPLETELY cleaned them out of condoms and any other OTC contraceptives we could lay our hands on. As the pharmacist stared in amazement at the spectacle of 40 college-age people in his cramped shop, each with several boxes of condoms, foam, gel, etc. in hand, he asked what we were doing in town. Whoever was in line replied that we were just in the neighborhood for a few days, staying at the Christian retreat center up the road. 