Cold Medicine

Urgh! You wake up with the headache and a runny nose that's steadily progressing to a plugged nostril that leaves you with just one, to breathe in the morning air. Great! You let the wormie-germie get the better of you. You should have taken that cold pill yesterday.

To make matters worse, you can't call off at office. It's going to be a killer day. So you decide to drag yourself to the medical store. It's early, but you could perhaps find one open, with any luck. You live close to two dozen such stores, don't you?

Soon enough you're ticking stores off your mental list. None are open. And then you remember one in a lane nearby. Right next to the tailor and that damn retailer you hated to pass by on any given evening. But it's just daybreak. You could be lucky.

You spot the crowd from afar. "Maybe it's not just me who is down with the cold," you tell yourself, encouraged. Or wait! Is this some epidemic… is everyone queuing up for quinine or something worse? You park cautiously at a good distance and walk to the store.

As you near, you see someone take a healthy gulp of water and you shudder. "God, this must be an epidemic that I've caught" you decide, with growing apprehension. Or why else would so many be gathered around the medical store this early in the morning? And what was that smell. Typhoid? Or something you catch from rats?

No! Slowly you realise it isn't an epidemic as you screw up your nose in disgust at the smell of rum and soda. It's hardly eight in the morning. The crowd you'd spotted was outside the liquor store. Gawd! They must have opened at dawn. Look at all those... oh look... he swung half a bottle in a few straight gulps!

You thank your plugged nose. At least you only have to take in half the smell. But imagine, not one medicine store open. You walk back to where you are parked, passing a young man down a big plastic tumbler or dark amber liquid, bottoms up. You're left with your cold and an aching question.

What would your question be?