Is that my desk or the local pharmacy?

It must be another sign of old age when one of your desk drawers at work turns into a medicine cabinet. Or maybe it’s just that, after all these years, I need all the help I can get to make it through a day of work.

The latest addition to my work place medicine cabinet is thanks to my loving wife’s generosity.

She came down with a cold recently and, not content to keep it to herself, she decided to share it with me.

Of course, she wasn’t content with just a plain, simple cold but decided to take it to the next level and move on to bronchitis.

I don’t think I want to carry this sharing thing quite that far, however, so I’m trying to knock this cold out before it gets out of hand.

As a result, my desk drawer now contains a bottle of liquid daytime cold medicine, along with a big bag of cough drops.

So far, that seems to be sufficient to hold my own in this battle, and I won’t have to bring out any of the big guns.

For instance, I haven’t had to resort to what a friend of mine from college used to call his “Scotch hat” cure for the common cold.

The “Scotch hat” cure consisted of placing a hat on the post on the end of his bed, then lying down in bed with a bottle of good Scotch and proceeding to drink until he saw two hats on the bedpost.

All right, it didn’t cure his cold, but by that point he didn’t really care what he felt like — or more precisely, couldn’t feel anything, his cold or anything else.

He never did say what he used to cure the morning after his “Scotch hat” cure either.

At any rate, I’m probably too old for that kind of extreme measure — at least not without a surefire remedy for the next morning.

The cold relief items are just the latest addition to what, for whatever reason, has become my version of an over-the-counter pharmacy.

For a number of years, I’ve kept a ready supply of antacids in my desk drawer for what I used to think was just occasional heartburn.

I learned a few years ago, however, that I was the proud owner of an ulcer.

I don’t remember ever ordering one of those, or putting in a request for one, but I do know I don’t have to think hard to come up with a lot of people I could probably thank for it — including several to whom I’m related.

The antacids followed the bottle of pain reliever that has been a steady resident of one of my desk drawers for many, many years.

Let’s face it, I don’t care what job you’ve got, there’s always going to be something or someone — or more than one, most likely — that’s going to give you a headache in the course of the usual workday. In fact, aspirin, acetaminophen or whatever analgesic you want to use is probably standard issue for just about everyone’s work desk or work place.

I used to use my desk drawers for the usual things like paper clips, pens, note paper and other office supplies, but it doesn’t take long for them to be squeezed out by the more essential necessities for dealing with the everyday workplace added to the usual list of maladies one accumulates over the years.

Now, I have a hard time finding a pair of scissors or a marker in my desk when I need one, but I can always find my pharmaceutical needs at easy reach. Just a sign of changing priorities, I suppose.