It's a good thing I don't work on a construction site

Damn, do I get distracted too easily.

So I stopped in at the Duane Reade on Third today to pick up some antacid for the occasional bout of heartburn I get at night. (Hard to believe I get it, I know. I mean it's not like I consume a lot of coffee, chocolate, red wine, Scotch and beer. Oh, wait a minute...)

Anyway, I usually try to get Duane Reade's own brand whenever possible with items like this. It's usually quite a bit cheaper than the brand name product and just as good. (They basically slap their own label on the stuff they purchase from one of the big manufacturers and, let's face it, aspirin is aspirin).

So, I'm looking at a bottle of Tums Extra Strength, berry flavor, selling for $5.49. And, sure enough, a few inches over on the shelf is DR's own label, same extra strength formula, same berry flavor even, at $3.29. More than two bucks cheaper. Beautiful.

Well, just at this point a drop dead gorgeous, and I mean stunning, blonde comes by and starts cavorting through the cough medicines not far away. She had to be a model - you know that look, you see it quite a bit in the city. I had no interest in talking to her, though. If she's looking at cough meds, I'm thinking - germs. Ugh.

Nonetheless, I was still a tad distracted. Enough so that I didn't notice until I was outside the store that I had, of course, picked up and paid for the Tums at $5.49.

It's a game of inches, my friends, a game of inches.