About twelve years ago, I was working the photo counter at a pharmacy with a corner store attached. On this chilled early spring day, my photo counter is greeted by a regular customer. He is a stern-faced gentleman in his late sixties. He is also a little bit of a paranoid. However, it isn’t unwarranted; he did work as a security officer before retirement.

So, as usual, he comes in to drop off and collect a roll of film. I go into my Corporate Prerecorded Procedure.

Me: “Can I get your phone number, please?”

He responds with his own prepared line, which is said far more angrily.

Regular: “I don’t say my phone number out loud. Look me up by my name.” *Spells out his name*

I then do the far more tedious lookup-by-name method. And there is more than one [Regular] in the system. I would sigh and roll my eyes, but my soul has already left my body and I lack the energy to even be apathetic.

Me: “So, is your phone number [number]?”

He gets angrier.

Regular: “I don’t say my phone number out loud for a reason, you fat butthole.”

Ah, “fat butthole.” Changing it up, I see. Last time it was “oversized moron”.

Me: “So, that’s a yes.”

We go through the now-standard procedures of drop off and pick up — information, photos, and currency exchanged. Being [Regular], he MUST check all twenty-seven of the photos in the pack before leaving, so he steps aside.

From behind him in line appears a customer I’ve never seen before or since. She is a short woman with dark hair and a genuine, honest-to-god smile on her face.

She spills onto the counter a half-dozen rolls of film and disposable cameras. And because the corporate training is so ingrained, I ask:

Me: “Can I get your phone number, please?”

She begins. Halfway through, [Regular] realizes that someone is committing the deadly sin of vocalizing numbers! He reaches over to her, puts a hand on her shoulder, and turns her to him. He looks her dead in the eyes and says, in his angry grandpa voice:

Regular: “Don’t tell him that!”

That was probably the “wrongest” thing he could have done, because the woman SNAPS. First, she slaps his hand off her shoulder. And then, in a rapid-fire assault of words, she cuts into him.

Customer: “Dontyoutouchme! Didn’t your mother raise you to not interrupt? He is just doing his job!”

[Regular] just sputtered and wandered out the front door, tail between his legs.

[Customer] turned back to me and continued giving me her number as if the last forty-five seconds had never happened.

I hate to admit my pettiness, but someone got the employee discount on like a half-dozen rolls of film.

I’m a receptionist. The biggest part of my job involves answering the phone and greeting people. I am fairly new and want to do my job the best I can, so when my throat starts to hurt (which is happening regularly), I don’t want to go to the doctor since he could tell me to stay home. I stupidly decide to work through it, drink tea to soothe my throat, and hope for the best.

It doesn’t get any better, and by the end of the week, I have lost my voice, can barely function, and have a bad fever.

It is Friday evening, and I go to the late-night doctor — by taxi since I don’t have a car. She diagnoses me with badly infected laryngitis. She gives me a prescription for antibiotics, painkillers, and a nebulizer for an aerosol treatment. Since it’s late, I have to buy everything at the late-night pharmacist. The taxi that drove me to the doctor drives me there, too.

Once I arrive, I see three to four young women working there, laughing and joking with the few customers. I wait. Ten minutes later, they are still slacking off and making small talk to the first customer. I wait, trying to be patient, annoyed by the fact that all of the employees are serving one customer instead of each one taking one person and moving to the other.

Another fifteen minutes later, they finally move to the second customer and start making small talk and jokes again. I still wait. I am worried about the taxi bill since the driver is still waiting for me. I am in great pain and the fever is making me very hot and very cold at the same time.

Another ten minutes pass, and they are still with the second customer. I would like to leave and go somewhere else, but it is the only pharmacy in the neighborhood, and I am in too much pain to even think about leaving without the medication.

When they finally move to the third customer and again take their very sweet time, I start crying from the pain and the frustration. I have no voice left, so I can’t even call one of them to get their attention. I cry for a good five minutes before one of the pharmacists notices me and comes toward me.

Pharmacist: “Hey, hey, honey, why are you crying?”

I’m barely able to get the words out.

Me: “It hurts… And the taxi’s been waiting for half an hour…”

This seemed to get her to move; she took the prescription and started putting all of the pills I needed and the nebulizer machine on the counter.

I paid and finally went back to the taxi. The driver was worried since I was crying and had taken a very long time, but he was not mad at me at all. He told me he knew this pharmacy and that the team there was known for slacking off and not taking the job seriously. This Godsend of a man didn’t even make me pay for the time he waited for me outside. I gave him a generous tip: 30% of the bill.

It took a whole week for my voice to come back. I still can’t believe it took me breaking down in tears for someone to finally do their job.

I still have the nebulizer at home. I intend to take my very sweet time taking it back.

A harried-looking woman comes up to the pharmacy counter.

Customer: “Do you have anything for hormones?”

Me: “I need you to be a little bit more specific, ma’am.”

Customer: “It’s my teenage son! He has too many hormones! I can’t take it anymore! He has no socks left! I can’t buy anymore!”

Me: “Oh… wow. Um… I think you would need to talk to a doctor about that, if you think it might be a health risk. I can’t offer you any over-the-counter medicine that would help you, I don’t think.”

Customer: “But you don’t understand! All he thinks about are boobies! There’s something wrong with him!”

Me: “Not that this is medical advice, but it sounds like there’s absolutely nothing wrong with him at all.”

Customer: “Ridiculous! I can’t handle so many boobies!”

She continues muttering about teenage hormones while the pharmacist comes up to me.

Pharmacist: “Did she just ask to chemically castrate her teenage son?”

Me: “That’s what it sounded like. Does that even happen?”

Pharmacist: *With a wry smile* “The Lord himself couldn’t stop teenage boys looking at… uh… boobies.”

Amen!

Related:
Making A Boob Of One Self, Part 10
Making A Boob Of One Self, Part 9
Making A Boob Of One Self, Part 8
Making A Boob Of One Self, Part 7
Making A Boob Of One Self, Part 6

When I worked at the big chain pharmacy in my hometown, we would have big waves of customers coming in looking for prescriptions. Sometimes, when it was quieter, I would get into a stance as if I was playing baseball.

Coworker: “What are you doing?”

Me: “I’m getting ready for the bus of old ladies heading to the casino. They all need their dozen prescriptions, even though half of them aren’t due for a refill.”

Cut to about a year later. I moved out of my hometown to another part of the state, and I transferred to the pharmacy at that location. I continued my gag of getting into a baseball stance, explaining to my coworkers what it was about. One day, I looked out of the store to see a large group of older women beelining toward the pharmacy.

Me: “THE TIME HAS COME!”

Turns out, it really was a bus of ladies from a nearby senior living community heading to a casino, and they were using the advantage of having the bus to pick up their prescriptions before they left!

I’m at the pharmacy. A customer comes in and talks to the pharmacist.

Customer: “Do you have masks made in France? Here there are only made in China masks.”

Pharmacist: “I’ll look in the storeroom.”

She does and comes back.

Pharmacist: “No, I only have masks made in China. But you can buy them if you want. We use them here.”

Customer: “Well, don’t be surprised if your eyes get slanted!”