I am not welcomed to the pharmacy. Medical waste buckets accompany vaccination sites and rows of greeting cards — a typical restaurant table set up with chairs and crappy room dividers, serving covid-19 protocols and securities. The mall I am in is emotionally vacant, people are coming in and out with ordinary, blunted affect. Duh, it’s a Thursday. The room dividers are broken and everyone knows what goes on behind them — if they don’t know they stand tiptoed peering with one eye, maybe two, never three. I got my booster shot here a few days before and during my 30-hour long side effects, I decided I need a third part-time job.
I wait around near prescription pick-up until someone points at me and tells me to “come back here.” I feel like I’m in school again — people laugh and I laugh, possessed by people. Why are we laughing again? Everyone looks grey because of the lighting. I better not look grey. I better not think of myself while in the pharmacy.
I go to the other pharmacy for everything else — The one with a Neon sign instead of a Billboard. It’s a mistake that I’m here now. They play the same four songs over and over again.
Everyone apologizes, says they’re busy. Hang up yourcoat, do whatyouneedto do. Areyouworking? I guess, I reply. (Maybe if I exhibit the same indifference I’ll blend in?)
Ok, I’llshowyouaround. Forgotyou were herealready! Someone doesn’t introduce themself. They don’t need to. They have their name on their jacket. Theheat is broken, thingsdon’t …usuallylooklike this. The place is being heated by propane tanks and it’s warmer than my house. There are way too many people back here and no one looks at me. I keep saying hi but I can’t hear anyone say hi back because of the hum of the heaters, the hum of hidden machines, the hum of no-one-being-in-the-store. I keep saying hi. Someone yanks me away from the propane tanks. Careful, you’ll burn! There are ten people behind the pharmacy counter, four people working the front of the store, and one citizen strolling through the aisles yelling angrily about lottery numbers.
The first thing I am shown is the wall of pills ready for pick up, in the perfect orange-tinted bottles with people’s entire government printed on a label. The wall is alphabetized, but imperfectly. Pills on the right side of each letter-ed section are most recent, and that is most important. The alphabetization is according to last name, not first name, even though some labels show last name first while others show first name first. Imperfect system, but most important, and you’ll want to ripallyour hair out if you messit Up. And we’ll rip your hair out FOR YOU. I am given a code, an easy code, to get into the online system. Which I will come back to if I can remember anything. I walk up and down the items of things and stuff as someone points out what is taxable and nontaxable. Makeup is taxable. Sunscreen with SPF is nontaxable. Vitamins are nontaxable, people need vitamins. Tampons are taxable — haha don’t you hate it here? What about aloe? Hmmm, letmethink.
I am shown how to ring customers up and also how to call them — Whatwill yousay to people on the phone? Youwill bepolite. They areall old people here, youwill speakup. Everyone gets busy again and I’m standing trying to look busy. The people that come to the pharmacy are mostly doctors, greeted with a “hey doc” by the pharmacist’s assistant. Then there are doctor’s doctors doctoring some kind of paperwork and thoughts and lists and scripted conversations. Then there’s someone looking for gum. Someone touches my back and shows me how to text people on the computer to let them know their prescription is ready for pick up. I text 20 different people. I am pulled away by someone else and shown how to label assorted drugs mailed that morning by the pharmacy’s suppliers. I put the little inventory stickers on each bottle/box and put those newly labeled bottles/boxes into a metal basket and once the metal basket is filled, I put it on a table a few feet away for the pharmacist to deal with. I’m not supposed to talk to him, because he doesn’t like to be bothered while he counts. People write him little notes. He waves with his back turned. There is a robot, but it is hidden. The robot isthepharmacist’s’s baby. I say awww ohmigosh thatissooooo cute.
Someone comes up to me and asks me what I’m looking for. He says, they take care of you here, whateveryouneed. Full-time work, benefits, you will come in very early on the weekend, SoWhatdo you think? He asks. I wince. He gets the picture. I leave early. Do you say drugstore or pharmacy?