A few months ago, I faced an interesting dilemma.  Laid out on the couch with a sore throat so painful I could barely swallow, I tried to decide which was worse:  hauling my sick body out of the house for the first time in a week to accomplish an important errand, or sending my housekeeper, driver, and/or bodyguard to the drugstore to buy a pregnancy test.  I didn’t love either of my options. With my significant other in the U.S. (nice timing!) I decided to take the “do nothing” approach and wait for the throat infection to pass.  Five days later I made the trip to the drugstore myself, with driver and bodyguard in tow of course.  There was nothing I could do about the entourage, but at least going myself spared me from having to pantomime “pregnancy test” to two gruff-looking Pakistani ex-military men. I chose my most conservative Pakistani outfit for the errand: full shalwar and long sleeves. For some reason this made me feel better braving Shaheen’s Chemist.  At pharmacies in Pakistan, a line of male employees stands six-deep behind the register watching your every move.  Don’t bother trying to figure out how all of them are necessary for the ringing up, packaging, or payment of your order: they are just there, and always will be.  The drugstore is also so brightly lit one could perform surgery on the counter. I blew by the freezer case of Snickers ice cream bars (my normal reason to visit Shaheen’s) and entered the shop, accompanied only by the bodyguard lurking by the front door and the driver idling out front, to ask for a pregnancy […] Read More