DEMENTIA CARE: I.O.U.

Three weeks into this month, the unseasonably hot September, it’s time to talk about two weeks into last month. I am responsible for arranging online prescriptions. One week out from the end of the line, I go online. Then I order for the month.
   The bell tolls three of the clock, and all is well. However…
   It used to be the case that I’d order prescriptions on Sunday night, they’d be okayed on Monday morning, and delivery was assured by Friday at the latest – leaving the previous order’s pills in stock for Saturday and Sunday.
   These daily pill boxes don’t fill themselves.
   A little bit of overlapping action doesn’t hurt. You carry the unused pills over into the daily drug compartments in the sturdy see-through box.
   Depending on the day of delivery for the new drugs, after a few months you have an extra week of buffering to get through in case of emergencies.
   Used to be that way.
   You can’t order more than a week ahead. The order is simply barred, to avoid abusing the online system by ordering a year ahead.
   Once pills started to take more than a week to arrive, the extra week of buffering in the pill box evaporated. And then the week in advance meant nothing, as waiting times grew longer. Covid was a factor in this. Brexit was a factor in this. Fairies in the garden proved to be a factor in this.
   Milk products were out of stock. Or just flat unavailable. A sorry state of affairs. From time to time, milk-related supplies just weren’t there at all. You went without that month.
   We got by. Severe supply disruption only mattered if the prescription milk and the supermarket milk fell into extreme rarity. Luckily, we got by.
   The funny thing about the latest delay in receiving small milk bottles? Things had improved and we went into a small surplus. I had to increase the frequency of drinks, just to let the excess taper off without wasting a single bottle.
   This is the job – mix a small bottle of milk into the regular milk once every two days. With excess supplies, for a short time, it is okay to go to one small bottle every day.
   That’s routine. And then there was last month. With a delay at the doctor’s for training and resupply, online orders never went through until Tuesday the 15^th. The order was approved on the same day and delivered one week later on the 22^nd.
   I just barely used up the last few excess pills in that time. We had no gap between one set of pills and the next: not a single day without medicine. And I had taken the excess bottles down to nothing. But there was something quite unusual in the delivery.
   There weren’t any of the standard small milk bottles. Instead, the only thing replacing them was an I.O.U. That’s right. Printed out by computer and not hand-written by a dandy highwayman in a drunken scrawl mid-way through an obscure card game with pistols drawn and open sandwiches to mouths.
   An official document.
   The I.O.U. indicates that the louche aristocrat with a petty laudanum fixation carries no money about his person, sirrah. And that he will pawn family silver, if not his family’s silver, to make good on the debt – at some time in the far-flung future.
   Preferably when the rogue in need of refinancing has had his last-ditch go at the races. Betting on a nag of a creature that’s seen better days: a nag of a creature replaced by a thoroughbred ringer of a racer at the final heartbeat before the off.
   I always thought rakes, rogues, and rascals filled out the I Owe You on a dandyish kerchief soaked in the blood of a failed duellist.
   It never occurred to me that an official organisation would issue one.
   I cannot comment on the chic styles worn in the mode of Beau Brummell, for I was not in the office where the I.O.U. was printed, though I suspect everyone involved was dressed fancier than the wallpaper.
   There it was. All the pills. No milk bottles. A note. So what am I owed? A delivery of small milk bottles. When? Sometime between the issue of the note and the inevitable destruction of the galaxy we are in. At least a week or two, then.
   An I.O.U. is without limit of time. It’s official, though potentially endless.
   There I was, arranging the gradual use of excess milk bottles…and just as I dealt with that, this low blow. No more milk for now. When, then? If not now, when? Not now. That’s it.
   How did this affect things? The prescription milk is a supplement. You add it to regular milk. If I have too many supplement bottles, I start adding to the regular drinks that don’t normally require that stuff.
   Result. Regular milk is used less. That means, after a week, when it is time to order more milk from the supermarket…it means I have a regular milk surplus and order less of the stuff.
   The I.O.U. doesn’t alter anything. It is timeless.
   With the excess milk used up, we were back on track to a graceful glide up to the end of the line. But for a month, with no supplemental bottles, the regular drinks haven’t been topped up on a reasonable basis.
   Unreasonably, with no top up at all, I’ve been going through more supermarket milk than usual. And that affects weekly orders. More milk. If the milk is available. Occasionally, asking for more bottles from the supermarket, I am thwarted by the delivery of chocolate milk.
   And that’s a treat for me, but no use for the cared-for. I could send the chocolate milk back, but it’s already made its way out to me. The hell with it. Makes a change of pace for me.
   So what’s that situation all about? More supermarket milk is needed. And the right kind, too, obviously. Now we’re short on the regular supply, as a bottle of strawberry transformed into a bottle of chocolate. And we’re even shorter than that, as there’s no top-up from the supplemental stuff.
   Meaning.
   That I have to order in reserve bottles of milk while the reserve bottles of milk already in the fridge do their job – covering any shortfall. I.O.U. It does nothing. The absence of medical supplies does all the seeing and sawing on the see-saw.
   I delayed making this blog post to see if I would receive the missing milk bottles. Phone went. Pharmacy. The bottles were finally in. Could I take a delivery that very afternoon? Of course. Phone went again. We’d passed the cut-off time for afternoon deliveries. How about the next day. Of course.
   What happened when the milk arrived? Technically, I guess I cashed in an I.O.U. The rakish dandy at the door flippantly tossed a foppish swell of hair in wild insouciance – an act only a dandy is capable of performing – and I tore the I.O.U. in twain and in twain again before throwing it to my alert Irish wolfhound, who dutifully carried the pieces to the low-burning coals in the iron grate.
   At this, an inebriated judge rose from absinthe-inspired slumber to denounce the political party of the entelodonts. His weary eyes caught sight of the burning I.O.U. He sank beneath a pile of discarded breastplates left there by a band of roving cuirassiers, and dimly muttered his approval of my elevated state of affairs.
   Or…
   I confirmed the address and took the bag to the fridge.
   Returning to the interior of the tragic ancestral pile, with its bat-haunted rooftops, crumbling chimneys, Gothic Revival Revival Revival Revival architectural whimsy, and paper goats, I shot a butler, sacked a ’tween-floor maid, knocked over a stuffed bear, and, in early autumn twilight, removed myself to the half-drained lake with its forlorn waterside folly in the shape of a giant milkman – where I exercised the ancient land-owner right to dynamite with mild abandon.
   And now, barely taking in the bottles, I find myself locked into the old routine. I’ve accepted prescription goods and I’m hot on the heels of the next fix. The NEW order is in, being approved, and sorted through.
   In a matter of days I will receive more bottles. I’ve barely dented the pile of new ones. If I receive more bottles, and not a promissory note of some kind, then I’ll be piling these excess bottles into regular milk. Meaning I’ll use less of the regular milk, all over again.
   Maybe there’ll be a second I.O.U. Or other certificates. Something for farmers confirming the cattle herds are free of West Nile vampires. That handy congratulatory certificate that lets you know you survived rabies…
   Title deeds to plots of land on the MOON. I’d sell those on at a slight profit, obviously. No need to be greedy. There’s enough fake moon land out there for everyone. It’s easy to arrange when the ownership is fictional.