Why the Mental Block?

I have to admit that I would consider myself a pretty intelligent person. Okay, honestly, I think that I am quite smart. And not just in book sense, but in common sense and in being able to reason things out.

However, there are two areas/subjects/things that I am afraid will always be a mental block for me.

The first is my ability to spell. I think that there has been a small improvement over the years, but in truth that may be attributed to the proliferation of computers and spell checker. Rare is the day that I can type and entire email and have it pass the spell check the first time through. More often, I misspell words to such a degree that the spell check doesn't even recognize it and offer up suggestions. I have to take a second guess.

The other area of my life where I just never seem to be able to learn is in medication. For the life of me, I NEVER know what I should take to make myself feel better. Decongestant? Antihistamine? Both? Something else entirely? And what is really frustrating is that self-medicating should be an innate ability. I come from a family of pharmacists. My grandfather is a pharmacist. Momma is. My aunt and uncle both are. One cousin is in pharmacy school. Her brother is a doctor. And my youngest sister is a lab technologist who has taken enough science classes that she could probably make medicine. And then I can't even go to the drugstore and match my symptoms to those listed on a box. Seriously. I might as well be reading the boxes in Chinese. I might even fare better. Just now, I spent 20 minutes walking up and down the medicine aisle of Kroger trying to remember what momma told me yesterday about what I should take to kill this rotten cold I have developed.

I think that she said the 12 hour Tavist D would be best for the day and Benedryl at night. But the Tavist was 20 bucks and the other thing about coming from a family of pharmacist is knowing that I could probably get it cheaper (or free) at home. Surely, I have something here that isn't that far past the expiration date. So I left without medicine. Only chicken and stars soup, apple juice, and two more boxes of Kleenex.

Oh I feel crappy.