Whoever it was who got on the flight from LAX to Kansas City with the sinus-infection-influenza-tonsilitis-Dutch-elm disease, I will find you. I will hunt you down and bury you in a shallow grave of your own snotty tissues, so help me God.

By Christmas Eve, there were Oompa Loompas in my head acting out scenes from Charlie and the Mucus Factory. I had downed two bottles of Nyquil, several tablets of Airborne and was the cold-and-flu-blister-pack-opening champion of Jackson County.

Still it wasn’t enough. I needed the good stuff. I needed pseudoephedrine.

The thing you have to know about my hometown is that it’s one part generic suburb, one part Mayberry, one part Deliverance and all parts meth producing capitol of the U.S. (Yes, we’re all very proud. Thanks.) And what do you make meth out of? Okay, other than the drain cleaner, dog shit and rat poison –

That’s right. Pseudoephedrine.

In order for an upstanding, snot-producing citizen to purchase said product, you have to pick up a card describing the dosage and number of caplets you’re trying to purchase, stand in line to see the pharmacist, show identification, provide a current address and phone number, be entered into a log, sign a form and wait for the staff to unlock the giant cartoon-like safe o’ cold reliever. My mother – who has never had a speeding ticket, looks like Betty Crocker and has that similar fresh-baked cookie smell about her – was once accosted in the Wal-mart by security for trying to buy two boxes of the stuff at one time. It’s significantly easier to get your hands on the actual meth.

So sometime between the body cavity search and the blood test results, I handed my driver’s license to the woman in the white coat behind the counter.

Her: “Callie-forn-I-A!”

My inner voice: “Oh God.”

Her: “You know, I was in California once.”

Me: “Uh huh.” Inner voice: “Kill me, please.”

Her: “Must’ve been...Gosh, let me think now...”

Inner voice: (trying to decide what heinous crimes I must’ve committed in my previous life to deserve such torture) “Puppy-kicker? Candy-stealer? Republican?”

Her: “Forty-two, I believe.”

Me: “Really.” Inner voice: “There’s a stapler right there. Can you kill yourself with a stapler?”

Her: “Now wait a minute, maybe it was forty-three...Where abouts in California are you from?”

Inner voice: “Here we go.” Me: “Los Angeles.”

Her: “Ain’t that something? Now let me tell you about Los Angeles...”

And then – I’m not proud of this – it’s possible I sneezed on her.

Her: (careening back to the subject at hand) “You want this medicine in your purse or a bag?”

Me: “Purse, please.”