Highlights From Pill Slinging On The Day Of Love.

Although I've never needed it, yet, I took comfort in noticing the liquor store opened at 8 in the morning. I sat in the drive through at Jack In The Box, and waited for my extreme sausage biscuit, and saw the old man with the scraggly beard leave the store across the street with a brown bottle bag tucked under his arm and felt much the same way a trapeze artist must feel when they look down and see a safety net far below them. Getting some extreme sausage in the morning before a twelve hour day has been a ritual of mine for well over half a decade now, but it was only today I noticed the liquor store across the street opens at 8 AM. Comforting as it is, I don't think it's a good sign.

I put the sausage in my stomach and slowly strode forth across the parking lot to face the day. Halfway to the front door a midget woman flagged me down. Not really a midget I guess, but pretty damn short.

"Excuse please.....can you help? I park but afraid to put in reverse."

That was the condensed version. Her actual communication took far longer. Her car wasn't quite lined up with the parking space but she didn't want to back up. She actually did seem afraid. Did I park her car for her because I have a desire to help my fellow humans or because I have the alcoholic child's pathological desire to please people at all costs? As I struggled to wrest myself from the front seat that was set for a person a good foot and a half shorter than me, I couldn't help but to think it was the latter. Afterwards she hugged me, which added insult to injury.

Once inside the pill garden I noticed a little pin doohicky had fallen out from the handle used to crank the pharmacy gate open. It's half an inch long and it's impossible to raise the gate without it. For some reason I went to the hardware section of the store and McGuyvered a solution instead of standing around and staring at where the pin used to be like everyone else. The district office called to let me know how much they appreciated the type of employee who can think on their feet like that and save them the time and expense of a service call.

BWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHAAAAAHAHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHAAAAA!!!!!!! Oh God I kill me. Anyone who believed that last sentence has never worked retail a day in their lives.

The first customer of the day payed for an 8 dollar prescription with a hundred dollar bill and the second wanted to know if her prescription was ready yet. "The machine said I could pick it up after noon" she said. It was 9:15. Yeah, knowing I could walk right out the front door and buy a bottle of gin at this hour definitely made it more tolerable.

At the mid-morning mark I was presented with a prescription for Nuvigil, a stimulant used to keep people awake, and temazepam, a sleep aid, both with instructions to take one in the morning. I wondered if the purpose was to let them fight it out to see who'd win. I looked up and saw what looked like a 17 year old kid carrying a heart shaped box of copro-pharmacy chocolates and wondered if that was really gonna get him laid as I sat on hold with the doctor's office.

At the mid-afternoon mark I decided I would invent a new type of prescription vial. My revolutionary device would let the patient see all the way to the bottom, which will allow them to be fully aware of when they are getting low on their prescription and therefore able to call a few days ahead of time to have it ready, instead of the current system, in which 80% of non-Vicodin patients seem to be totally unaware of when they have taken their last tablet. Coupled with my other idea, a ground-breaking new prescription label that would clearly state when there are no refills left, patients will now have all the information they need to competently manage their prescription affairs. I mean.....no one but a complete dumbass would let their prescription run totally out if they could clearly see there were no tablets left to take and no refills remaining.

BWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAHHHHHHAAAAAHAHHHHHAAAAAHHHHAAAA!!!!!! Seriously, I really do kill me. Where's the gin?

The second and last time I was required to perform a professional function on Valentine's Day was when I explained to a woman why her doctor discontinued her potassium prescription when he switched her blood pressure med to lisinopril. I was interrupted twice while doing this. Once by a man who wanted to know where the bathroom was and again by a lady who wanted to find the bendable straws. Potassium lady eventually accepted my explanation, but didn't seem nearly as grateful for it as the lady who had me park her car.

I ended the day wondering how much I could make as a valet, but secure in the knowledge that I had to make it to the liquor store by eleven. I've known the closing time of the liquor store for years.