My Sister Vera (Part 2 of 9)

For some reason Vera, when she was little, was susceptible to insect bites. Her eye would swell up real puffy if she had some sort of bite. Mom had some medicine that she’d give to Vera with a spoon. When the bottle of medicine ran out, she gave Vera a dose from a new bottle and threw the old one away. Vera thought it would be neat to have the empty bottle, so she got it out of the garbage and filled it with water. She didn’t rinse it out but just shock it and mixed the residual medicine and the water together. Then she drank it. Combined with the medicine Mom had already given her, this was too much for Vera’s system. It made her sleepy and she fell asleep for a full day. Mom was glad when they invented child proof caps a few years later.
One day Mom got in the mail a bill for services rendered by a medical clinic to Vera Lynn Loveless for a pregnancy test. Mom called them immediately. “There must be some mistake,” she protested.
“No mistake,” the lady from the billing department said.
“You must have some other Vera Lynn Loveless.”
“There is no other.”
“But you see,” Mom tried to say.
“Lady, just pay your bill!”
“But you see....”
“Come on, ma’am, just pay up and there won’t be any trouble.”
“But you see, my daughter, Vera Lynn Loveless is only six years old!”
Long pause.
“Oh.”