Working to Keep Living

Val is hot to trot this evening.

I'm not talking about an inappropriate interlude with a dude picked up in a bar at closing time. Nope. I'm breathing fire. Snorting flames. My blood is boiling. I'm about to blow my stack. To let out a shrill whistle like the end-of-shift signal down at the Shotz Brewery.

My pharmacy has changed hands. It has gone from a Mom and Pop kind of drugstore to a Doom and Poop kind of place. The official takeover happened three weeks ago. Surely they would have the new procedures in place by now. Last time I tried to call in my refills, that automated phone would not recognize me. So I had to talk to a person. Everything went fine with the pickup.

Monday I tried to call in my prescriptions. No. I needed a person because the phone had never heard of my prescription numbers. All lines busy. Got through, put on hold. Got a person who took info because the computer would not take my vitals. It took twenty-five minutes to set up my refills by phone! Tuesday, I was too busy to pick up my prescriptions. Today, Wednesday, I called ahead at 10:00 a.m. Yes. They were ready. There was a slight glitch with one for Genius, but they fixed it. Said everything would be available by 11:30 a.m.

I stopped by at 4:53 p.m. Got in line. The aisles are like cattle chutes now. One main line to pick up prescriptions, but to get anywhere near the other parts of the counter, you have to find an empty chute. I waited twenty minutes before getting to the counter. Then another twenty-five while one thing or another went wrong. The girl grabbed the bags out of the alphabetized plastic tubs behind the counter. She went to ring them up, but one wouldn't work. Oops! They hadn't applied insurance to mine, even though they had to the one for Genius. Then they discovered that they had given me 90-day bottles instead of 30-day. Then they had to check one prescription with the pharmacist. Then I discovered that they had substituted a generic to which I am allergic. Then they lost my insurance cards. Then they told me I might as well sit down, because they had to recount my pills.

Seriously. This chain has a problem. They don't have four-dollar generics. Even though I am covered by two insurance policies, they will only run the prescriptions on the primary card. The sixteen employees who remained from the old store have not been able to master the new computer program. Sixteen people who have worked in a pharmacy for years. It's not like they're a busload of non-English-speakers just arrived at the sheltered workshop.

This visit took over an hour, and cost me $22 dollars more than last month. Over an hour to walk in and pick up prescriptions that were "ready" after two days and two phone calls totaling thirty-five minutes. I could have found a group of black-market foreign-country toddlers to make my medicine for five dollars, the equivalent of a year's pay in their nation, quicker than the drawn-out torture I was subjected to by this new chain.

I am ready to join three other patrons I know who have taken their business elsewhere.