Day 4 Of The Pill counting Parade.

So, real life got in the way of my chronicle of the week of pill counting highlights. And by "real life" I mean, "my desire to sleep" Like I have a real life. Ha. Anyway. we'll pick up where we left off. Think of it as some sort of pill counting highlights on tape delay.

I'll be honest, this week I have been entering the happy pill counting room worried if the day would provide enough pill counting highlights to fulfill the commitment I've made to you guys. The "Highlights From Today's Pill Counting Action" type of days usually have a unique feel to them, you can almost sense a disturbance in the force when one is about to happen. They also lend themselves to the 12 hour shifts, which won't be coming up for me until later on in the week. Once again I entered this workday wondering if I would be up to the challenge.

My concerns were immediately put to rest, by myself, when I tried to blow my nose and immediately clogged up my ears. This has happened from to time to time before, for like a second or two, but this time the clog wasn't going anywhere. I tried a big yawn, I stuck my pinky in and wiggled it around, I popped in some gum that I realized too late was an....what is the word.....rather....exotic....flavor one of my technicians had brought over from India, but it was all as effective at clearing out my ear as the airborne is at preventing colds. I started to wonder if maybe a piece of snot had gotten blown up next to my eardrum. Customers do not wait for you to resolve your personal problems however, and there was a man forging his way to the pharmacy to demand my attention.

He asked me about earwax removable drops. I swear. When I asked him to repeat what he was saying I think he might have thought I was making fun of him, but I honestly could not have been more empathetic at the moment. I was starting to resign myself to a life of silence.

Until the PA went off. Losing half your hearing brings the store's PA system to almost a bearable level. Bearable in volume. Not necessarily in content. The announcement went something like this:

"Ummmm.....yeah......for the owner of a large dog who asked someone to watch him, it's now run over to Petco....the large dog......that.....a customer wanted watched.......ummmm.....it's now.....over at.....um......Petco. The large dog. Thank you."

It was the cashier whom I was convinced was drunk yesterday. I sent a clerk back to sniff her again.

My deafness and the saga of the large dog were not the biggest news of this day however. That distinction belongs to a development in my employer's prescription transfer gift card program. For what seems like an eternity now, my employer has offered a $25 gift card to customers who transfer their prescriptions from another pharmacy. And when they say "customers who transfer a prescription from another pharmacy" what they of course mean is "any customer who asks for one." Transfers, new prescriptions, refills, buying something the syndicated health columnist in the local newspaper recommended, the tone set from our higher ups has been clear. Give 'em a card and shut them up. Today we may have finally found the limit to my employer's generosity though.

A woman demanded a gift card for transferring her two prescriptions to Target. Let me repeat that. Someone wanted us to pay her for taking her prescriptions and having them filled somewhere else. She didn't get a card, and this one might stick.

Might I said.

My ear unclogged and I wasn't sure if it was my imagination that made me feel a chunk of something go down my throat I was forced to swallow. I vowed to only breathe through my mouth from now on like the stupid people do. I walked over to the in window to wait on the nervous looking man, who presented me with a prescription made out for Keflex and Vicodin.

"Can you just enter the antibiotic?" He asked. Huh. Sometimes water does go uphill I guess.

"Sure, I'll just put the other one on hold in your profile for you, if you decide you want it just let us know."

"No!!!"

He explained that he was a recovering addict, that he had told the people at the emergency room this when he was admitted, and that when he saw the Vicodin on his prescription he asked the nurse to scratch it off. Whereupon the nurse told him just not to fill it. I wondered if my local hospital had a program where they might stuff t-bone steaks into the discharge packages of vegans and told the man that the Vicodin order no longer existed.

So the day ended with a customer begging not to get Vicodin. Talk about a disturbance in the force. I have high hopes for tomorrow.

High hopes. I just got that. I kill me.