If you live in a small town and if you've ever tried to buy a pregnancy test in that small town, you'll understand what I'm talking about.
There's one pharmacy in our small town and it's in the same building as our one grocery store. I never go to the grocery store without first arming myself with my cell phone and putting in a diversionary call to my mother. It's not that I am anti-social, not at all. I'm a teacher at the one private school in town and inevitably, if I run into the grocery on a quick 2-item run, I will run into students or parents of students who want to chat it up. It's not that I mind talking with either constituency. I rather enjoy the parents of the kids I teach and I really like the kids. But it's a battle of time. I can easily get stuck in a produce aisle conference about Jimmy's willful underachieving that lasts at least an hour if I am not so armed with my phone and my own willing mother to help me evade would-be chatter boxes.
And the drug store is just as bad. The aisles are jam packed with everything from coffee makers and space heaters to children's games and grills. There's even rumored to be a secret drawer that holds gag gifts for bachelorette parties but I've never seen it. Chateau Drug is so eclectic it's even been written up in the New York Times. Not only are the aisles stuffed to the gills with any odd or end you could dream of needing, stalking those aisles are people you know from every corner of your little life: work friends (or enemies), social acquaintances, the waiter from your favorite restaurant who knows you well enough to bring you your food without you having to order but isn't the person you want to be the first to find out that you think you're pregnant.
So, before I even set foot in Giacobbi Square (home to Atkinson's Market and Chateau Drugs) to buy the a home pregnancy test, I regretted the fact I didn't have time to drive 20 minutes south to Hailey, home to three drug stores, a town that guaranteed me at least a modicum of anonymity. First I navigated the teeming waters of Atkinson's and made it to the check out line faking a phone conversation with an uncooperative mother (she wasn't answering her house phone or her cell phone). Standing in the checkout line, I turn to find my friend Christine smiling devilishly. She says, "Matt told me to corral you. We're all going to get a beer. There's no escape." I look over to where she winked and there was Matt, big, bull in a china shop Matt, blocking my only other exit... I was caught.
We decided we'd meet up at Grumpy's for a beer in 20, after I ran to the drug store and gathered my husband, Greg from work to join us. I felt a certain urgency to know whether or not my inclinations that I might be pregnant were accurate or not before I had another beer... I had been doing some mental calculations as to what I had consumed in the alcohol realm within the last month. Halloween was a pretty big party; how much had I had to drink? Feeling like a criminally unfit potential mother, I walked into Chateau hoping it would be abnormally empty. No such luck. Every aisle presented an obstacle and hovering right around the pregnancy tests was the father of current student. He wasn't scanning the different types of tests; his attention was focused elsewhere but he was certainly prohibiting me from grabbing an EPT and running. As I wondered the other aisles killing time while he weighed the wonders of whatever sits next to the pregnancy tests in drug stores, I ran into a friend's husband getting pain killers for his broken wrist, a former student's mother picking up some light bulbs and a current student raiding the candy aisle. Considering the fact that all roads lead to the same check out counter, I couldn't fathom how I was going to get out of here without starting the Ketchum Rumor Mill full speed ahead.
In my conscious history, I cannot ever remember considering shoplifting before but I stood there in my local drug store and ran through the pro's and con's of sticking this box in my big puffy coat and walking out the door. I looked around for security cameras all the while knowing that furtive glance would have been my dead giveaway. I couldn't bring myself to face shoplifting so I wandered a bit more waiting for some of the notable customers to clear out. Friend's husband, occupied with pharmacist. Student's dad, over with the camping equipment. Student, still deciding between Snickers and Babe Ruth. 3 out of 4 accounted for so I made a run for the register. Damn. Former student's mother in line right ahead of me and the two ladies running the cash register had been plucked from the local retirement home and were operating computerized cash register (or anything computerized for that matter) for the first time in their very long lives. Every time they attempted to ring something up, they would have to scan it at least 5 times - or at least that had been the case the last few trips I'd made to the drug store. I hadn't minded before; I was only buying things like Tampons. But this time was different. If that old lady had to scan this very recognizable EPT box more than once before slipping it into a discreet bag, I was going to dissolve into a puddle of embarrassment. I was all too familiar with the way the rumor mill in this town worked. As the mother of my former student and I chatted, I hoped she wouldn't look down at the table in front of her to see the old lady struggling to read the price tag and enter it manually since she had failed to get the scanner to work. I was all too familiar with the inner workings of the Ketchum Rumor Mill. If mother of former student happened to spot the pregnancy test, a phone call or two would be made, someone would log onto Facebook and then it would all be over. Once it's on Facebook, there's not stopping it.
I guess I ought to just thank my lucky stars that the local blue hair behind the register didn't know how to operate the intercom system either, because she probably would have announced, store wide, that she needed a "price check on EPT Plus, That is Early Pregnancy Test, Plus." It's a small enough store that every eye would have been on her asking the question and me the real subject of its inquiry.
I finally did get down to Grumps to meet my friends. They conjectured that I must not be pregnant if I agreed to have a beer with them. Quickly, I dug myself out of that one by claiming the need for caffeine since I had a stack of papers awaiting me at home. They had beers, I had a Diet Coke and Greg joined us as we played with their one year old daughter who climbed back and forth across the booth.
I sat in the booth drinking up my suspicions and uncertainty.
