Kids These Days

I grew up respecting professionals. I grew up respecting adults. It was the way I was taught. It was the way I was raised. Somewhere along the way, as I grew up from child to professional, the way our society treats people seems to have gone wickedly astray. I am, forever the optimist, hopeful that I can still find good being taught today. Decades of retail tell me otherwise, but I still attempt to instill this in the people I meet. Until this all-too-real story happened...

Not-Getting-It-Lady: "But I needs my medications."

CP: And you need a prior auth. 

NGIL: What's I'm s'posed to do now?

CP: Go back to your doctor. We called him. He knows. 

NGIL: But he wrote me these. I has to have it!

CP: And that is why we called your doctor and told him to get the prior auth started. We also called you and left a message at the house so you needn't've come down here without first calling. It would have saved us all the following scenario...

NGIL: But I needs it.

CP: This we know. And with this we are trying to help. Please try to listen and comprehend the words coming out of my mouth. 

...then...

12-yo brat child of NGIL: My mom's going to kill you if you don't give it to her!

CP: Sorry. What? So who's going to punch your kid in the throat, you or me? Because if I ever spoke like that to an adult, let alone a pharmacist, my parents would have shoved my head through the counter, dragged me out by my hair, then strapped me to the roof of the car and taken me home where I would have been whooped with every belt in my father's closet. If I ever sat again, I would have been marched back to the store where I would have been forced to issue the appropriate apology. Should you choose to do nothing, I have 3 witnesses behind you who can verify the threat and would have no problem testifying to the police who are about to be called.