Friday, February 24, 2006

Going Through The Trash......

......not the highlight of anyone's day, and certainly not a glamorous part of any job, but, hey, it happens. You drop in a piece of paper you need back, you accidentally throw away a bottle lid (shhhh...don't tell any customers), your favorite pen got knocked off the counter, that kind of thing. The other day though, there I was, sifting through the waste for a customer that really, really, wanted her old prescription vial back because..............I swear I'm not making this up..... it had a picture of Michael Bolton on it. Seriously. I eventually found it and returned it to the happy 40ish woman. The obvious question:

Why....oh why would you tape a picture of Michael Bolton to a vial of your cholesterol medicine? My theory; looking at the pic decreases your appetite and makes it easier to avoid eating those greasy , high fat calorie bombs that send your cholesterol numbers through the roof. Alternate theories; she was a relative of Michael Bolton, a fan of the movie "Office Space", she shares his desire to "hit a softball at Conan O'Brian really hard" (An actual quote, Bolton and O'Brian got into some sort of pissing match awhile back), the picture keeps the cockroaches away from her medicine when she leaves the medicine on her bathroom counter at night. Least likely theory of all; she was a big Michael Bolton fan and enjoyed his music.

"The Most Dangerous Place to Be"

...according to spawn of Satan Rush Limbaugh "is between a liberal woman and her morning after pill." Seriously. He said that the other day during his daily bullshit fest. I think he was trying to make a joke, but not only did it not make me laugh, (Rush often used to make me laugh.....a lot....before I realized so many people were taking him seriously) it made me think of the many times I *have* stood in the way of an addict and his Vicodin...and uh.....quite honestly, although I never have "stood in the way of a liberal woman and her morning after pill", and never will, if I were making the choice based only on my personal safety, I'd pick the liberal woman over a pompous oxycontin craver such as Limbaugh any day of the week.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Lord Knows I Love To Make Fun Of Customers......

.....all two regular readers of this blog (who have no doubt moved on long ago during my 9 month sabbatical) have no doubt of that. Every once in awhile though..... one will turn the tables on you and make you feel about an inch high.

The other day a man comes in....and through his broken English I can figure out he's asking for something for depression, because someone (not quite clear who) has died. I'm the only one manning the counter at the time, and like I've said, there's more than a bit of a language barrier, but I try to get through to the guy that there's pretty much nothing out there that's gonna be of any help. Now I've been at this awhile, and I've developed an ability to read people.......and I know this guy thought I was blowing him off. He leaves the counter and I have to dive back into the 2 phone calls and stack of prescriptions that have built up while we were(n't) talking. When I get caught up...maybe 15..... 20 minutes later...... who knows. I see him in the middle of the aisle in front of me, in a strange land, dealing with the loss of a friend or relative, desperately searching through the Tylenol Cold Formula and Robitussin looking for something to ease his mind, thinking the gringo behind the counter couldn't care less..........

.......I really....really hate this job sometimes.

Where the Hell Have I Been?

Has it really been 9 months since I've tended to my little blog garden? Damn how time flies. I could have gotten laid and had a little drugnazi by now. My first thought when I came back to take a look was; "What the hell is up with all this spam in the comments?" Like 5 e-mails a day in my in box offering me Viagra isn't enough. I cannot escape.

So where the hell *have* I been anyway? Well I'll tell you. At least since the beginning of the new year, I've been dealing with hoards of angry and/or confused old people who can't understand why their meds are no longer covered, or why they're getting charged way to much for them. You've heard about the new Medicare drug coverage. It's a cluster fuck only Satan himself could have designed, yet more proof that the Republicans responsible for it are the spawn of the evil one. You wanna know why pharmacists have the second-highest suicide rate of any profession? (I think lawyers are first, that fact shouldn't need explaining, and quite honestly it's a trend that I think should be encouraged) I'll tell you why. All the responsibility, none of the control. No one asked me what I thought when this turd bill was working it's way through Congress. And although me and anyone who's ever worked in a drugstore knew this thing was gonna be a train wreck as soon as we heard about it. We weren't consulted or offered pork for our home districts or threatened while voting was held open for 2 hours in violation of House rules by the Republican leadership. As a matter of fact, last election I went to my nearest swing state and walked precincts until my knees were sore, stuffed envelopes until I had quite the collection of paper cuts and made phone calls through a massive head cold precisely to get these assholes OUT of power. After it was over I went back to my room full of pills bitter and convinced that if the American people were so stupid as to want to be ruled by corpro-fascists, then that was THEIR problem and THEY deserved what THEY would get. I was just gonna mind my own business and have no sympathy for them.

Then the first of the year. The swarms of confused blue hairs angry at me for the policy implemented by the people I tried to stop. And I know they have a right to be angry, and I have no choice but to tell them they are expected to pay way too much for their meds now. Many people will try and tell you politics doesn't matter. Well I see it matters every time I go to work. I tried to embrace a personal isolationism after the election. It doesn't work. You cannot escape.