“Lord, I ruined that night for you.”

Any bearded joke happens sooner or later in life. My brother’s wife recently split up.

When she came to America with her mother and grandmother n years ago, they, like all refugees, were given Medicaid – a free medical insurance. Grandma forever, and young people - for six months, until they get to work. Mom and grandmother rushed to treat the old wounds, and Lina herself with the wounds somehow failed. A healthy 23-year-old girl. And such articles a girl who just wants to roll in a stone. With a hammer on his shoulder. Or with a happy ending. In general, there is no interest in medicine. Except as a model for what to seek.

But my mom and especially my grandmother said strictly, “There’s nothing here!” Take care while the insurance is free. Then you get enough – and it won’t be.
You will cry with bitter tears. And Lina, as a obedient girl, went.

I went to the therapist and found nothing. The surgeon has the same picture. I finally went to the gynecologist. He looked at her purely out of sporting interest.
Then I looked at the medical card. He sees that the insurance is coming to an end, and the American state is still virtually not robbed. The doctor was from the Russians, his unrestrained state was a blow to his reputation. He asks :
Maybe you need contraceptives?
Lina shakes her shoulders: no one yet. My brother has not yet painted on the horizon. Then the doctor says:
Let’s write out condoms.
and wrote out. From the heart, for all the unsuccessful amount. Package one hundred or two hundred. With refill for six months, that is, every month for the same amount according to the same recipe. By the way, a unique case. I never heard of Medicaid giving free condoms again, one Line was so lucky.

Lina, like a obedient girl, took the recipe and went to the pharmacy around the corner. In a small private pharmacy in the ultra-religious area. Many new immigrants initially settle in such areas, there cheaply and safely.

Why they are in the range of condoms is a separate question that I have no answer to. However they appeared.
The woman at the box read the recipe. I put on my glasses and read again.
She got a few packs from a distant box, threw them on the shelf, used them into an even more distant box. Lena is standing and waiting. Cut with Cut
(Summer, heat), cosmetics, bright packaging on the shelf. Other visitors look at her contemptuously, whisper something about themselves, almost spit. The children are taken behind the shelves so that they do not see. Wherever you go, the pharmacy is small.

The cashier grabbed everything out of the furthest box, the bunch is already very impressive, visible from a distance. But not even a quarter of what is in the recipe. He says:
Stay still, I’ll bring the provider.
Lina is standing. It’s all red, but it’s not gone. A provider appears. The glasses on the tip of the nose, the cap, the beard all gray. I have seen a lot in my life.
Smiled Lina with a glance from head to foot, at the cut stopped especially.
I counted something in my mind. He says:
- Girl, we no longer have this product in stock, but you do not worry.
We will order it now and it will be sent in three days. Three days is enough, right?

Lina drinks, catches, scratches the goods and goes away. Under the gaze that the holes just don’t pierce. I did not go to the pharmacy for a long time.

Three days later, the rest was sent straight home. A month later, and so on. In the sum of these condoms turned out to be so much that they used their best, and all the friends were distributed, and yet they climbed out of all the gaps in all the warehouses, and in the end 3/4 had to be thrown away - the storage period ended.

The condoms are over, but the story is not over. A few years later, Lina was in guests, and the daughter of the hosts, a student, began to tell about her course in sociology. She, it turns out, studied the statistics of the consumption of condoms in different areas of the city, and some facts did not fall into theory. For example, in one orthodox area, sales have grown four or five times, and six months later have dropped back without reason.

The visitors disputed the nature of this phenomenon. There are many interesting versions. Lena was prudently silent.