The Inadvertent Risk Taker

 

A news report today caught my eye because it was pertinent to a story I have, which I shall relate in due course. The report regarded some research which showed that people who took even two paracetamol tablets were more inclined to take a risk than those who did not take paracetamol. The risk taking was to do with activities such as sky diving, bungee jumping and the like. Here, then, is my tale... 

It concerns a lady, in her eighties, of previous good moral character and generally, as far as I know, a conductor of a law abiding life. As often happens in the later years of life, her hips started to give her pain and she duly underwent a successful hip replacement of the worst affected hip, with a promise from her surgeon that, after a three month recovery period, the second hip would be replaced, too, and she would be able to live her life onwards with a hop, skip and a jump - and free from pain. 

Sadly, the second hip replacement was scuppered by the onset of an imminent pandemic. Whilst the new hip had been rendered pain free, the second had not, and the lady was advised to take the maximum dose of paracetamol each day to help with the pain she was enduring. This would not remove the pain completely but it would, at least, soften the edges. 

The maximum dose of paracetamol per day is eight. Over a period of a 30 day month, that equals 240 tablets. In the UK, where once one used to be able to purchase bottles of 100 paracetamol, the law changed so that now you can purchase them in packets of 16 only and most shops will allow you to purchase only two packets in one visit. I believe this is to do with preventing overdoses. 

Now, if I was intent on overdosing, I could spend twenty minutes walking around the shops in my town and pick up two packs each from Wilkos, Boots, Morrison’s, Supersavers, Asda, Lidl, Sainsbury’s and Murray’s pharmacy by the medical centre. Within twenty minutes and at a brisk marching pace I could buy sixteen packets = 256 paracetamol tablets. The law, as they say, is an ass - and treats us like idiots. 

Anyway, the lady in question was unable, because of her hip, to go on a route march around town to stock up on paracetamol. Her GP had sensibly agreed to give her a monthly prescription for 100 tablets, which helped. But still left our lady another 140 to find if she was to manage her hip pain in some small way because her operation, six months after the postponement, showed no sign of being reinstated. But she could pick up a couple of packets during her weekly supermarket visit. And that almost matched the required doses. And they aren’t expensive, not really. If you stay away from the branded names you can pick up the same medicine for anywhere between 20p and 30p a packet. 

And now comes the pertinence of my story - thank goodness, I hear you cry! 

The lady in question, whilst in the supermarket one day doing her shopping, was overcome by what now seems to be a paracetamol-induced risk taking incident which made her put a packet of tablets into her bag WITHOUT PAYING!!!

Oh. My. Goodness.

By her own admission, she said she did not know what came over her. She had her trolley, she paid for all her other shopping in the normal fashion, but that little packet of pills took a covert and free ride from the shop in her bag. All 20 pence worth of it. 

This Inadvertent Risk Taker was soon overcome with remorse, vowing to return to the shop, to confess all and to take the rap, guv’nor. Her family (who secretly thought this adventure was a hoot because it seemed so out of character) advised against this course of action because it would be Sod’s Law the shop would do something inversely proportional to the event, like call the police. And then an arrest and conviction would ensue and this lady of previously pristine character would end up a hardened jail bird pensioner, probably peddling contraband knitted dog coats on the side in order to support her paracetamol habit.

Instead, this lady made a donation to charity to atone her sin. And vowed never to shoplift again.

I’m not so sure, not if this study on the correlation between risk taking and paracetamol consumption is anything to go by. It could be hang gliding next. Or extreme ironing up a mountainside. Except she doesn’t iron. Because that involves too much standing up. Which hurts her hip.