Highlights From Friday's Pill Counting Action.

I started the workday pledged to have a new attitude. A realization snapped into my brain during the morning commute that there are kids working their ass off at college campuses across this nation hoping only to eventually have the chance to do exactly what I would be doing this day. Today, I told myself, I will honor their commitment, their hard work, and most of all their dreams. I would be a good pharmacist. I would cherish this workday. 

First question: "What's the best way to remove hair from around my anus?" 

Second question, asked in the thickest of French accents:

 "Yes.....if I uh...kiss ze woman, who has smoked ze pot.....then I take ze, how do you say? Drug test? Do I fail?"

Yes indeed, my new attitude was paying off. Thank you pharmacy students of America, for providing me with the inspiration to get through this. 

I glanced down the cleaning aisle quickly while taking a phone-in prescription and saw what appeared to be a man flossing his ass with a feather duster. It was shaping up to be an anal kinda day. 

Me: "We'll have to send a fax over to your doctor's office to see if we can get you some more refills"

Customer: "But she has insurance to cover that."

Really. I didn't realize they sold those types of insurance policies, seeing as how a policy like that would be pretty pointless. Seriously, if you're paying an insurance company a premium to cover the expense of doctor refill faxes, you're totally getting ripped off. 

In non-pharmacy related store highlights, a customer parked their car in front of the store's front door and laid on the horn. And laid on the horn. And laid.......on the horn. That horn got laid the way I get laid only in my dreams. An employee went outside to investigate and was presented with a demand to go back inside and get the customer some cigarettes. Reports indicate the customer was using an oxygen tank. 

That's way you stay in school pharmacy students of America. Because it's better to answer questions about anal hair removal than it is to fetch an emphysema sufferers' next pack of cigarettes. I think. 

As the sun set over the parking lot of my happy pill room, I took a phone call from a customer very upset that someone had stolen their medication. Friday night, stolen medication. I started to scan over the customer's profile looking for the Vicodin and/or Soma that would be too early to fill. Nope. Today was anal day:

"THE ONE THAT CAME IN THE BIG JUG! THAT'S THE ONE I NEED!!!"

"We filled that for you in April ma'am."

"I NEED IT!!!!!"

The customer was talking about a prescription for GoLytely.  For those of you not in the profession, I'll tell you that the person who came up with the name "GoLytely" did it with the sole purpose of being cruel. GoLytely is indicated "for bowel cleansing prior to colonoscopy and barium enema X-ray examination." You take it the night before your examination so there's no poop in your colon any pre-cancerous lesions can hide behind, and you will not, my friends, go lightly. Columnist Dave Barry once described his experience with a similar product:

 

I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

Me: "Are you having another colonoscopy ma'am?"

"NO!! I NEED IT!!! IT WAS STOLEN!!!"

"Are you maybe thinking of another medication?"

"FUCK YOU!!!! I NEED IT!!!! ARE YOU GOING TO FILL IT OR NOT????"

"No, I'm not."

"ASSHOLE!!!!.........ARE YOU LAUGHING AT ME????"

"Yes. Yes I am."

And that, my friends, was the anal coup de grâce of my anal kinda day. A day that saw thousands of pharmacy students across this land doing everything in their power to someday stand in my shoes. Pharmacy students to whom I can say only one thing: 

You are completely insane.