We Don't Want No Out of Date Pills

Yesterday was Thursday, which means I spent most of the day down at the Second Mile Mission Center. I took my usual spot in the warehouse. My assignment this week was to "destroy" out of date medications that had been donated to the the Mission. Before I get into the fascinating details of how I destroyed the over the hill pills I need to make a request of all who may be reading this post. Please don't donate medication that has expired or is close to its expiration date to missions, food pantries, etc. Because of liability concerns - this is America - most of these groups have a policy against distributing expired medicines (although some will allow them to be used by missions outside the U.S.). When you donate past due drugs it seems like you're doing a good deed, but instead, it causes a huge hassle, because these drugs must be destroyed.

Second Mile's policy is that past due drugs can't just be tossed in the dumpster in the parking lot because history has shown that there are people who will take them during their evening dumpster dives. To avoid any liability the drugs are destroyed. In this case, "destroyed" really means made so nasty and unusable that nobody will want them. Given the task as master destroyer I came up with the following process. I didn't check with the FDA, EPA, NRA or the NBA for approval of my methods. Hopefully I didn't violate too many federal, state and local laws.

My process involved using the items at hand in the most efficient way possible. I noticed that there were several cases of out of date cough medicine. I took several bottles and poured them into a bucket. I then took box after box of old pills and dumped them in the bucket. When the bucket was about full I stirred things up until I had a slurry (which at times was actually bubbling) that if ingested would either kill you immediately, or if death did not occur, keep you from getting pregnant, relieve your worst headache, keep you from coughing ever again, make heartburn an impossibility for the next 75 years, or provide you with more vitamins than your body could ever process. I then stuffed a large trash bag about half full of old clothes and poured my concoction into to the bag and over the clothes, which absorbed the mixture and kept it from seeping from the bag. Then, and only then, did I throw the bag in the dumpster. I did this over and over for about five hours, but I had one of the giant fans blowing on me, so it wasn't so bad.

Having to perform this task took me away from doing anything that was actually productive. This is a task that must be assigned to a "responsible adult" such as myself. Imagine a middle school kid coming home from his youth group's day at the Mission and having the following conversation with his mom:

Mom - "Well Junior, what did you do today?"
Junior - "I handled multiple types of prescription medication without adult supervision. It was great fun!"
Mom - "Don't move while I call 911 and then our attorney."

Given that the 4th of July falls of a Saturday this year, today was the day that most people received as their Independence Day holiday. As was the case with Memorial Day, holidays just don't seem to have the same punch when you're not working. As a motivation tool I think I'm going to shoot for landing a job before Labor Day so that I can look forward to a three-day weekend. Certainly sleeping late on that one day will be better than sleeping late every day.

Regardless of who gets what day off work, tomorrow is the actual 4th of July. I'm anxious to see how well the ban on shooting off fireworks is observed by my fellow Greatwoodians. For those of you who don't know, Greatwood is not within the city limits of any municipality, so except in cases of extreme drought - such as now - fireworks are usually legal. Every July 4th and New Years Eve this place sounds like the first night of Desert Storm. I'm taking a wild guess that tomorrow night will be business as usual. I of course will not participat in any form of illegal pyrotechnic discharge. Too bad, I usually like to get those big rolls of 500 firecrackers that all blow up in about fifteen seconds. Hopefully it will rain once or twice before next July 4th and things will get back to normal.

Tomorrow: Big Independence Day get together at the home of our good friends Butch and Melanie. They have a great back yard, a great pool, and there will be a great number of hollow calories to be consumed.