Real Knee Knockers

One of the things they don't teach us in pharmacy school is how to deal with unexpected situations. So when a patient comes in and does something ridiculous you just have to go with the flow. Understandably, people say strange things when they are sick and sometimes even do things that they never would on a normal day. Well I don't have normal days. Each day is different in its own special way. Most of the time they provide me with long lasting entertainment, memories, and sometimes just piss me off. There is one day in particular that I will never forget.

It was late in the fall and the temperatures here had already dropped to slightly above frigid. The store was buzzing with blue haired ladies and snotty little kids. Each moving at very different paces and at volumes on opposite ends of the spectrum. Generally when the store is full of sticky little vermin I get distracted. I have a hard time deciding if the parents are to blame for the turd-hand terrors destroying everything or if Satan actually sent them specifically for me. I only mention this because on this day I was supposed to give an elderly lady a vaccination. I knew ahead of time that she was very fragile and feared that if I didn't notice her come in that one of the children could knock her down and break her hip! We all know that a busted hip in the elderly is a sure sign that the reaper is on his way to collect.

Sometime late in the morning I observed an Asian woman being helped through the door by a lady about 50 years her junior. Remembering the heavy accent of the caller who made the appointment, I deduced that my patient had arrived. She was almost 5 feet tall and only appeared to weigh about 90 pounds. She was dressed in an over sized sweat suit that I thought had floral designs. Turns out those flowers were just stains of an unknown origin. She had a large smile on her face and was very pleasant during our introduction. She spoke zero English so her granddaughter had to translate for us. After going through the normal pre-shot routine and questions, I took her and the girl into my office to administer the shot.

I placed gammy in a chair and instructed her grand baby to have her slip one arm out of the sweatshirt so that I could get to her shoulder. I turned my back and prepared the injection as the air filled with a language that I would never understand. A banter in some form of Chinese that lasted about 2 or 3 minutes ended and I turned to clean a spot on her arm with alcohol. When I looked up I noticed that gammy had decided to remove her shirt entirely. No problem right? Wrong! Apparently the brassiere is not a popular piece of clothing in her opinion. To my shock gammy was topless! Now the confusing part, where were her tits? Naturally my eyes panned south as I approached her and to my horror there were two hairless cats curled up in her lap eating raisins! Get the picture? There are some things you just can't unsee. All I could do was smile and continue on.

I will never eat raisins again.....

The Reason Why

It would be safe to say that most people don't fully understand the role of the pharmacist in the the health care triad. Well I'm not here to bore you with a bunch of bullshit stories about how great we are and all the wonderful things we do that you never knew about. The reason why I am doing this is to share share some stories and experiences I have had behind the counter. All of these stories will be from first hand experience and will be told according to the best of my recollection. Don't assume a story is about you or about someone you know because it's not, so get over yourself. Also, I don't care if you think my grammar or spelling is poor either. Most of these accounts will be gross or graphic in nature and I don't plan on censoring any of it. So with that disclaimer and a glimmer into how raw this will be, lets get started.

This day started as most others do, busy as hell with people filtering in and out of the store at a scary pace. When I'm behind the counter my head is down and I'm focused on my work about 90% of the day. Occasionally I look around to see who is there or if any gypsies are stealing everything off the shelf. On this day I noticed a woman coming through the door with a 2 liter soda bottle in her hand. This obviously peeked my interest and I locked on to her trying to decide if she was just thirsty or about to splash a Molotov cocktail in my face. As she approached I noticed the bottle was empty (phew!) but she was coming right for me. I'm sure she had rehearsed her lines on the way over but I don't think she was prepared for my lack of concern.

Instead of saying excuse me sir or pardon me, the small rhino blurts out hey! Hey you! I responded as nicely as possible, yes mam? She holds up the bottle and says can you help me with this? I say, can I help you with what? With the most sarcastic face I can muster. At this point I have discovered that she has a street scam going and she thinks I'm just stupid enough to go for it. She shakes the bottle and manages to say with my bottle! Doing so without any of her methamphetamine rotted teeth falling out was impressive. So now I ask what she wants me to do with her bottle and she says she wants me to fill it up with gas. Keep in mind she hasn't mentioned anything about running out of gas. After I took a deep breath I informed her that we do not sell gas!! Not to be deterred she tells me that she knows that!!!! So now I'm confused and I ask what she wants me to do?? Finally the question I could see coming from the beginning, I want you to give me some money for gas? Just like that people, give her some money for gas?? Are you kidding me? I told her we are a pharmacy not a bank, if she wanted a loan go next door to the bank. Not to mention there was a gas station one hundred yards away. She looked at me like she was going to rip my throat out and smoke a rock with it! I had conquered her though and she angrily took her bottle and left.

Is everything supposed to be free or gifted to the strung out and desperate? Damn people