First of all, will someone please tell Eddie that he absolutely can not have the squishy pillow to sleep with?

It was an uneventfully stressless day at work today. We had yet another visit from SugarMama, so named because she buys bunches of glucometers when she finds coupons to get them for free and then returns them at other stores, netting her about $75 each. We’ve been on to her game since June or so and try to prevent her from getting them; she won’t even try to buy them at the pharmacy counter anymore because we won’t sell them to her back there, so she tries her luck with whatever cashier is working at the front checkouts at the time. StressedRph was not as stressed as she has been lately, and I actually got to leave 45 minutes early. I managed to forget my check stub once again, but that’s pretty much the norm for me.

We’ve been dealing with a wet floor in the bathroom for a couple of months now. We were assuming that it was water seeping up through the foundation, but it turns out that our toilet tank is leaking. This is a good thing, because it means that the foundation doesn’t suck like we thought it did, and fixing a toilet tank leak is fairly easy from what I’ve been reading. Drain the tank, replace the gaskets, and viola, no more leaky toilet. Somehow this will probably not be as easy as I’m making it sound, as is generally the case for any project that do, but if it doesn’t get done then someday in the near future I just may take a caulking gun to the toilet, and I’m sure that won’t end well at all.

• For the second night in a row I’m drinking after work. It’s cold, it’s fruity, and since StressedRPh (as I think I will now call her) was absolutely insane these last two days, I think I deserve to have an adult beverage. :drunks:
• I bought my Halloween costume last night. I’m going to be Alice in Wonderland. We decided that this is appropriate for the pharmacy, since the entire Disney movie is nothing but one long acid trip. Eat this and get small, drink this and get bigger, and have a hit off the giant caterpillar’s hookah.
• Speaking of costumes, it’s damned near impossible to find an Alice dress that doesn’t make you look like a skanky ho. Even the plus-sized ones were a bit on the trampy side, with the exception of those that were horribly designed and looked like a tent. However, I did manage to find one that was what I was looking for (namely one that actually looked like the book/movie). Supertech says she’s going to dress as a cat and be my Cheshire cat at work, but she’s backed out of dressing up over the last two years because she didn’t want to dress up and go out to appointments in the morning before work.
• I’m “watching” the debate via Twitter and listening to the TV. It’s much funnier this way.
• Eddie as whining at my mother last night. “You never go to my site, but you comment on hers!” My mom pointed out that she does go to his site, and that this Twitter thing is strange and she can’t get it to work. We’re contemplating setting up a Twitter account for her.She could rant about the door greeters in the Walmart garden shop.
• I like list posts.

Today was one of those days at work that wasn’t entirely bad. The phone system was fucked, which is bad for the customers who are too dumb to figure out that the girls at the front registers are perfectly capable of getting the pharmacy to answer it (eventually, anyway). However, that made things slow enough where we could stand around and bullshit. And in case any of my bosses ever reads this, by “bullshit” I really mean “giving each patient the individualized care that they require.”

Topics of today’s discussions were as follows:

• regarding Bette Midler’s song “From A Distance”: If God is watching us, does that make him a stalker? Is he watching us while we shower?
• if Santa sees us when we’re sleeping and knows when we’re awake, is he a stalker as well? And since he watches kids, does that make him a pedophile?
• things that would be on Supertech’s “wheel of reasons why I can’t date you”
• things that would be on our “wheel of early refill excuses”

It’s never a dull moment in there, really. Just before I left there was this really nasty couple buying syringes. Let me offer up some advice to any IV drug users out there. Please do not hurry your ass to the pharmacy counter for your syringes and then in the next breath ask if you can use the bathroom. Please do your shit in the parking lot of the bar behind us like all the other druggies, ok?

I received some spam in my inbox this week, telling me that I could sign up for online courses to train in the exciting job field of pharmacy technician and become nationally certified. “A career in pharmacy can be really rewarding, both financially and professionally! Good salary, flexible working, and lots of opportunities!”

Excuse me while I step away from the computer to LMAO. That’s right people, I’ve laughed so hard my ass (or my appendix, if you’re Supertech’s son) has completely fallen off. Gone. The paycheck’s not bad, but certainly not fantastic, and professionally? The last two days have been spent cleaning up (literally and figuratively) all the mistakes that Floater-RPh made over the first half of the week.

Professionally? I’ve learned that it is entirely possible to keep a straight face when someone wants to know if fist fights with her boyfriend are ok on the day after her abortion. I’ve learned that the professional thing to do in most situations, such as anytime someone comes up to the counter lifting the edge of any piece of clothing and saying “I’ve got this rash…” is to call the pharmacist over. Because they’re the ones who went through 5 years of school for this very situation. I’ve learned that if someone doesn’t work in your store on a regular basis, they will come in and fuck everything up before they leave because hell, they’re not the ones who have to deal with the fall out.

Yes, I’m bitter about my job this week. The first half of the week was spent with a floater Rph filling in, who shall henceforth be known as AsshatRPH. Monday was ok, it’s like you’re in 5th grade and you class has a sub who lets you do your own thing as long as you’re quiet and don’t disturb anyone. The 2nd and third days were just a big blur of chaos. AsshatRPH’s throwing peanuts at us. He’s on the phone. He’s putting stuff in our jacket pockets. He’s squirting us with alcohol. He’s on the phone again. His girlfriend is calling, pretending to be a customer again. His stalker is delivering lunch, but he thinks it might be poisoned so can we test it for him first? He’s leaving a trail of food crumbs behind him as though he’s unsure that he’ll be able to find his way back to the computers. I finally snapped at him on Tuesday afternoon because he does NOTHING that he’s supposed to do, like lock up the narcotics in the safe after using them, or writing out scripts he takes over the phone on actual rx pads we have, instead opting to write them out on slips of blank paper.

And let’s not forget the fun times that were had when he decided to try to disconnect/”investigate” the new security cam that was hidden 2 weeks ago, which was a stupid idea to start with but was proven to be even more moronic by the fact that one of our loss prevention people - the ones who put the camera in there in the first place - was in the store at the time.

If he manages to keep his job, it will be a miracle.

The rain has finally stopped for a day and we’ve got a nice, bright, sunshiny day here in Coventry. Eddie is complaining about how I won’t kiss him because his mouth smells like tuna from his lunch. Chaucer is sleeping somewhere, and Pickle is in her cage, curled up into a little cinnamon-bun shaped ball of fur. Everything is unpacked, and I’ve been slowly going through my crafting pile to get rid of things that I don’t need or won’t ever use.

We’re getting used to living here; it’s a quiet neighborhood, and the only excitement we’ve had lately is a squirrel falling from the roof, hitting our A/C, and landing in our wind chimes. And I slept through that. Even the loud motorcycles across the street have left I’ve started crocheting a bit again, this time an afghan for us, mostly while Eddie and I make our way through the 1st season of X-Files on DVD.

Last week was busy at work. I was the beginning of the month, meaning that we were filling pretty much nothing but heart meds and birth control, with the occasional pain killers thrown in here and there. The company is running a promotion right now where people can get up to $120 in gift cards if they transfer their meds from another pharmacy to us, so we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place at times. On one hand, we’re getting it drilled into our heads that they lost a lot of business during the merge/takeover last year, so they want all the business that they can get. On the other hand, this type of promotion attracts more of the type of people that no pharmacy wants: the ones who go from store to store, filling things at several different places at a time depending on who will fall for whatever line of bullshit they’re trying to use this week and who has the better promotional offer for prescription transfers.

We were talking about how cynical the job makes you, and how little faith we have in humanity after working there. I mean, we’ve got to deal with the fact that we need to treat every patient as though they are either a complete imbecile or junky. We need to specify that suppositories are to be unwrapped and are to be shoved up their asses, not swallowed. Oral antibiotics are to be swallowed, not applied to the ear with the infection. When a person comes in with a prescription and says, “I’m paying cash,” we immediately jump to the conclusion that they are one of the sketchy variety and assume that they have insurance and do everything possible to bill things out properly, including calling to the nearby chains to check them out.

Naturally, this makes everyone hate us, except for the little old ladies who think we’re wonderful.