the pharmacy at the end: palliation as inheritance
here is Motrin for your joints, Noxzema for your burn, Lemon Pledge if you prefer nausea to burn, Contracol for your back, benzoin for your hands, Epsom salts and anti-inflammatories for your ankle, and extracurriculars for your folks, who just wanted to make sure you didn’t miss anything they got.
Context
The whole how-to ends in an institutional dispensary, the body's every ache met with its own compound — and then the tell in the last clause: "extracurriculars for your folks," the parents' own palliatives handed down alongside the child's, so no one misses anything anyone got. Medication as the family estate, the pharmacy the through-line from father to son.