FOLLOW-UP AND CHILL PILLS

A couple of weeks ago I told all of you, my faithful readers, about a medical procedure that I had involving the bottom end of my digestive tract. Yesterday I had my “results consultation” with my little Indian born doctor. There’s a character on the Simpsons that runs a convenience store. This doctor sounds just like that character only with a slightly higher pitched voice. He said “You had four polyps. Nothing to worry about. I cut them out. The biopsy was no problem. Except one maybe. But it grows quite slow. And, anyway, I cut it out.” His rather casual attitude towards growths in my colon did little to reassure me and I let him know that. He said “It is no problem. Three years, we look again. Meanwhile eat many vegetables. Bran, lots of bran. And you are entirely too fat. Lose weight. You are much too fat.” So I left his office vaguely reassured and slightly pissed off. I mean just because he’s a skinny little guy it doesn’t mean everyone else needs to conform to his body size. But I did stop and pick up a couple of different kinds of bran cereal. And some bran muffins. By the way isn’t polyp one of the silliest looking words in the language? How can something like that scare us so much?

Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Coincidently it is also my Mom’s eighty-eighth birthday. So we have that extra blessing to be thankful for. On Friday, while all the hardcore shoppers are out hunting down bargains at the “Black Friday” sales, I’ll be driving up to our place in the North Country. I’ve already planned out my “avoid malls at any cost” driving route. It may take an extra hour or so but it’ll be worth it.

With the official start of the Holiday Season comes all the extra pressure of trying not to get totally angry at the whole retail establishment as it puts on its “full court press”. We’re cutting down on the expensive gift giving this year. I am on a fixed income now, you know. So we’ll be doing a lot of Martha Stewart-like crap, you know, baking cookies or bread and wrapping it up as cheap gifts. The shopping that needs to be done I’m going to try to do online. Fewer incompetent clerks will suffer my wrath and we’ll all have a nicer time. This reminds me of an incident at my drugstore yesterday.

I called in a couple of prescription refills and selected a time for pick-up from the phone menu which was far enough out that I expected no problems about it being ready. When we got to the pharmacy counter (my dear wife made the mistake of joining me on the outing) the clerk said that there would be a few minutes wait. I kindly asked her why that was the case. I had called the thing in ten hours earlier, followed all the directions and really thought it should be ready. She shrugged her shoulders and supplied a blank look as a reply. So we wandered around the store for ten minutes or so and then my name was called. The clerk then told me that one of my prescriptions was incomplete because they were out of stock. They had five pills and the rest would be available “maybe tomorrow, maybe Friday”. I told her that I was going on a trip very early Friday morning and could she be more specific. She couldn’t. She wasn’t offering any solution so I told her to cancel the prescription. The Rite-Aid down the street was giving a ten dollar voucher to anyone who transferred prescriptions to that establishment. Again, her reply was a shrug of the shoulders and a blank stare. I don’t really expect a lot from today’s crop of retail clerks. But a simple apology or some sort of attempt at a solution to a problem would be nice. At that time I happened to spot a guy counting pills into a bottle. I asked the young clerk if the fellow was in fact the pharmacist in charge and, finally, she was able to answer a question. She said “yes”. When I asked her if she could arrange for me to talk to him for a moment she looked like I was asking for an audience with the Pope. But she got his attention and he came over. Since I didn’t want to make a big scene I told the pharmacist, in a calm and low voice, that his pharmacy service pretty much sucked. I explained the problem and he quickly took steps to solve it. The only thing he failed to do was fire the incompetent dummy who works the counter. When I returned to the pharmacy this morning the pharmacist spotted me as I was heading towards the counter. He immediately ran over with my complete prescription, apologizing profusely for the previous evening’s situation. Once again I told him that the only problem with his service was the clerk that couldn’t seem to provide any. In the spirit of the season I told him that he should let the poor girl go, but since I had all the pills I needed until after New Year’s, he could wait until after Christmas. There was no sense ruining the holidays for her and her two kids. (I just made that last part up) So I thanked the pharmacist and wished him Happy Thanksgiving.

And I wish you all the same thing and a fine day too.