I am a little cranky…
Woman in the Middle | March 14, 2012My little ongoing problem reared its ugly head again a couple of days ago so I was off to urgent care again. By the time I realized that I probably needed to go it was after 7 p.m. I pulled up to the sight of a full parking lot. Oh no! Sure enough, the waiting room was packed with sick people. It looked like a plague ward! I certainly looked forward to hanging out with lots of germs I had not yet encountered. Then I was told the wait was three hours! Yaa Hoo!
I am happy to report that I did not have to wait that long, but it still took enough time that I found myself heading off to a nearby pharmacy after 9:30 p.m. I expected that the pharmacy would be busy filling prescriptions that had been called in for the next day and dealing with the few people, like me, who were coming over from Urgent Care. I am so naive.
Who in their right mind conducts their regular pharmacy business at 10 pm on a week night? Well, based on my limited experience, it isn’t people for whom the bulb glows brightly. I had to wait behind a man who, after picking up multiple prescriptions for himself, wanted to order up some for his brother. That is very kind of him, except it appears that his brother was a walking pharmacy himself, and the brother in front of me had to go through each one, find out if it was ready to be refilled, ask a few questions such as “What is that for?” and then decide, out loud, if he was going to order that one or not.
Next up, also in front of me, of course, was a young woman there with a prescription for someone else. Not a good sign at that time of night. She handed over the crumpled paper prescription and then couldn’t say if the person needing the medicine had insurance. OK, I can understand that. But what happened next…The pharmacy needed the patient’s address. This concept was completely beyond this young woman. She thought they wanted the doctor’s address…no, they needed the patient’s address…”Oh, you just want MY address,” she said. Sigh. At that point everyone gave up and just let her write down what ever address she wanted.
I have to say that this whole experience left me a bit cranky. It didn’t help that I wasn’t feeling well. After I got my prescription I didn’t stick around to see who else was going to show up at the late night pharmacy. I don’t think I could have taken it!
I had two runs to urgent care last summer and both times it was relatively empty. However, it still took about 45 minutes. I was lucky in that the prescriptions I needed were so minor that I could buy them for $5 at the urgent care place. I am never patient when I am a patient!
10 PM drugstore run sounds horrible. Hope you feel better soon.
Well, I hope that prescription helped you feel better!
Sorry you aren’t feeling well. When you feel better you can go back to the pharmacy at night and take notes. I’m sure it would make for a funny blog post.