The author, who describes herself as “the Jane Austen of middle-aged malaise,” keeps a journal chronicling her minor aches and pains…

Attention, people who are not Boomers.  There is a pill caddy in your future.  Probably much sooner than you think.

Here’s how it goes.  One day you wake up needing some Aleve for the old sports injury.   Then the doctor recommends a daily multi-vitamin.  Before long the cholesterol gets a little high and you’re popping fish oil.  Bone scan reveals Osteopenia, which is not the name of a Dominican baseball player, and you’ll be choking down calcium “horse pills.”  Pretty soon you can’t remember if you took the pills today, so you add the ginko biloba.  And then, before you know it, “Ding, dong. Zoloft calling.”

The calcium and fish oil are packaged in bottles the size of gas pumps, and you realize you need to have a system to manage your meds.  So you go to Walgreens and try to track down a little plastic see-through box with a compartment for each day of the week. (Right next to the Geritol, fyi.)

Then, once a week, for the rest of your life, you get to play pharmacist and put the pills in the compartments.  And every time, you think, “Didn’t I JUST fill this thing?”