I thought going to the grocery store was the most aggravating experience in Bakersfield.
Then again, I hadn't yet experienced the drug store.
In all the time we've been here, I had yet to have to have a prescription filled. It's not because I'm in particularly good health. It's because my insurance is so shitty I couldn't afford to discover whether I was in good health or not. And once I finally went to the doctor, the answer came back "not". I was diagnosed with extremely high blood pressure. No doubt from dealing with the morons in this town. So off I went to the neighborhood pharmacy.
The letters on the outside of the building may read "C.V.S." but make no mistake, what you're going to be dealing with is "A.D.H.D."
I have never seen a more scatterbrained group of people in my life.
And they were all behind the counter!
Dispensing drugs!
I suppose that's one way to thin the herd.
When I dropped the prescription off, a nurse-ish lady greeted me warmly at the counter...
"Helloooo..... how can I help you?"
I started to explain I needed a prescription filled when suddenly a page came over the sound system.
All of a sudden she started looking up at the ceiling, as if she didn't know where the voice was coming from, her head darting around like a chicken. The page ended and she looked back at me...
"Helloooo..... how can I help you?"
It was if she had forgotten we had already done this and she was greeting me for the first time.
I dropped it off and hoped for the best. The next morning I received an automated call informing me the prescription was ready for pick-up. I schlepped to the store and went to counter and when I said I was there to pick it up, a different woman informed me it wasn't ready.
But they had called, I explained.
She looked puzzled. Actually, she looked lost.
"I'm very sorry, but it isn't ready. Come back around 2."
So four hours later, at 2 on the dot, I showed back up wearing the same clothes I had worn that morning. The same woman greeted me at the counter. She didn't recognize me. She then informed me it still wasn't filled.
"Who told you it would be ready at 2? she asked.
"You did" I replied.
Hmmm. This really threw her for a loop. I thought her head might explode.
She told me I could wait, it would just be 10 or 15 minutes, so I took a seat nearby. And watched.
It really was like watching chickens. The whole staff just seemed to bounce around from place to place with no purpose and every time the phone rang or a page came over the speakers it just drove them to distraction.
Finally, after 15 minutes I went back to the counter. It was lady Lady #1.
"Helloooo..... how can I help you?"
Oy vey.
I told her they had just filled prescription for me and gave her my last name. The filled prescriptions are on a large rack three paces off to the side. By the time she had gotten there, she had forgotten my name.
"I'm sorry... what was your name again?"
I told her again and just for good measure I spelled it out.
She started rifling through the bags of drugs, seemingly lost.
After a few moments I was wondering what the hold up was and it was only then I noticed she was at the wrong end of the alphabet for my name.
"Excuse me" I said.
Up popped her little chicken head...
"Helloooo..... how can I help you?"
I reminded her that she was in fact "helping" me as we spoke. She was looking for my drugs, and she was doing it in the wrong place. I spelled my name, yet again, but another page came from on high and she lost her train of thought. Actually, it derailed.
Eventually, she found my drugs. I had been in the store 40 minutes.
When I got home, I did the only prudent thing. I looked up a photo of the pills online to see if it matched what I had actually been given.
you can never be too careful with these people.
