It's the Little Things that Make You Homesick

I remember one night Maggie and I were watching the comedian, Sinbad (aka David Adkins).  His form of comedy is what is commonly referred to as observational: he has a way of bringing to the surface all the crazy shit we human beings do and has a way of making me just 'split a gut' over it all.  Anyway, he was going off this particular night about marriage.

He said to the audience (and this is as best to my memory as i can remember) "You know what will drive a woman to divorce a man faster than he can turn around?  You think it's the big stuff.  uh-uh.  It's the little stuff.  I have two friends, one republican the other democrat.  They've been married fifty years.  Got another friend, he's an atheist and his wife's a Baptist--that's serious religion.  They're married twenty years.  Got another friend.  He got divorced in three weeks.  Why?  He wouldn't pick up his damn underwear off the ground.  Wife just left him flat. You think I'm joking guys, try it.  You will be trained or divorced.  make your choice."

Sinbad's point about the little stuff is true for me when abroad.  It is not the big stuff about living in another culture that throws me over the edge.  It's the little things.  For instance, as my family and most of my friends know, i swim just about every day.  Here in England swimming is important because it puts me in my routine: i get up, eat breakfast, work until lunch, go swimming, eat lunch, work..  You get the picture.

Anyway, to protect me from swimmer's ear, which is just nasty, i regularly put in my ears Isopropyl alcohol.   Why do I use this in my ears?  Because it is cheaper than buying swimmer's ear drops, which is nothing more than expensive isopropyl alcohol with some saline solution and i am cheap. 

Now, just in case you are wondering, in the states we all know isopropyl alcohol as rubbing alcohol, which you can buy ten carts worth of, if you like, anywhere, i mean anywhere: drug stores, department stores, grocery stores, cosmetic stores, gas stations; it's in our hand sanitizers; it's in our clean wipes; it's in our alcohol pads; and you can get it at varying levels from 50 percent all the way up to 99 percent.

But not in the U.K.   I have been at this now for over two weeks.  First, i tried asking people.  Watch a Brit's face when you ask them for rubbing alcohol.  "What do you want dear?  You want to rub on yourself alcohol?"  Before the drug store woman I was asking could even turn around and announce my question, out loud, in a sing song British accent to her colleague I was running out of the store in complete embarrassment.  "Where did he go luv?" "I don't know, but he went there in a hurry."

I go home and look the term up on Google.  Here, Brits call isopropyl alcohol Surgical Spirits.  Okay, I will try again.  Next store.  "Excuse me, mam, but do you sell surgical spirits?"  "I am not sure, dear, let us have a look.  Yes, here it is."  I take the stuff, buy it, content in my victory, and go home.  Depression sets in.  Evidently, the people on the internet are not chemists.  Surgical spirits is made of ethanol and methanol.  You heard that right.  I am not pouring the latest alternative energy down my ear canal.  And, on top of that, it has castor oil.  What?  Where in the name of all things good can i find some damn isopropyl alcohol?  Oh, and by the way, there is this real need on the bottle to make sure Brits understand that ethanol (which is really just badly cut vodka) should not be drunk--much like Americans need to be told not to drink hairspray or that their hot coffee might burn them or that they should not put a bag over their head, cause it might make breathing difficult.

Third store.  This time I am in York.  Okay, I figure, it is a bigger city than Durham, and perhaps more urban and wordly, surely they have isopropyl alcohol, right, i mean now i am staring to lose it. 

Now, before I continue, an important caveat is necessary.  Notice that not a single male works in any drug store in the UK; it must be an official thing.  And also, and this is very important, the British women in these stores, and that goes for just about any retail establishment I have been in in the UK, are beyond nice.  In fact, they are so wonderfully pleasant and helpful that I simply cannot get mad at them.  Now, if I was in the states, I would just get all 'yuppy' on them and act like the spoiled, privileged professor I am, with the worst thing in my life being my failure to procure isopropyl alcohol.  Here, I just smile and thank them repeatedly for the effort.  So, back to the third store.


"Excuse me, may I speak with the pharmacist?  "Why yes dear."  Pharmacist walks over--also a female.  "Yes sir, may I help you?"  "Yes mam.  I was wondering if you have ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL?"  As I say these words, the pharmacist looks at me like I know something nobody else does--as if I was trying to get into a speakeasy during Prohibition.  (For my student readers, look it up and learn something.)   "Now, dear, why would you need that?"  "Swimmer's ear," the clerk says to her.  "Ah, yes, the swimmer's ear.  Have you tried our other products?"  "No," I say.  I am now in total neurotic form, as clearly the conversation has completely collapsed. "The drops you have on the shelf are some combination of olive oil and other oils.  Or, in the case of surgical spirits, I cannot use that, as it is methanol and ethanol--the former which we use to knock out baby frogs and the latter which we use to run cars.  See, I don't want to put that in my ears.  I use ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL."

Silence.  thought.  Finally, "Ah, dear, you want the special and more expensive swimmer's ear drops; they have ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL in them."  Are you kidding me?  "Yes," I say, that is what I want!"  I am thinking to myself, now we are getting somewhere.  "Problem is, luv, we will have to order it, as we don't carry it in the store."  What?

It's the little things.