On buying eye drops

In an earlier post, I mentioned how culture shock can cause one to do strange things, like buy an entire case of tomato paste. Here's another story to illustrate that, and to illustrate the mishaps that can occur because of language and cultural barriers.

A few days ago, I went to the pharmacy in the marche and told the pharmacist I needed some eye drops without preservatives. He didn't seem to understand, but after I wrote the word "preservatives" on a piece of paper and told him again that I wanted eye drops without them, he nodded and took a blue and silver box out of a display case. I thanked him, paid for my eye drops, and came home.

Today I opened my box of eye drops and discovered that my eye drops are actually condoms. Pink condoms, in fact. Without preservatives, of course.