Why Are We Having This Conversation?

ME: Did you ever wonder, with some of the conversations we've had, if our presence was actually necessary?
MICE ELF: Like the people you pass on the streets talking to themselves?
ME: Similarly. I feel as if those conversations don't need verbal combatants any more than some of the conversations at work.
MICE ELF: CP, tell ME about last week's quick discussion.
CP: It was an overcast day, the smell of fresh rain on the draft through the drive-thru drawer that never closes. I was rather amusing MICE ELF with a story about how the people who need to be on automatic refills are the ones who rail most against it.
MICE ELF: Like the people most in need of . . .
ME: Stop it. Stop it now!
CP: Continuing. . . I rang a guy whose medication was out of stock. It should have been a simple call but, as these things do, it took an unnecessary pivot.

CP: Good day, kind sir.
I Doubt It Old-Timer: Is it?
CP: It is indeed. I get to call people and deliver bad news so what could be better than that?!
IDIOT: Why do you people keep calling me?
CP: Well, had you answered with a more kindly greeting, I would have explained the reason for my call.
IDIOT: Well, get on with it.
CP: The prescription we were trying to fill for you today is out of stock. It is a special order item and we need to request it phor tomorrow.
IDIOT: That's fine. I don't want it anyway.
CP: Ok.
IDIOT: How much is it?
CP: Pardon?
IDIOT: How. Much. Is. It?
CP: I don't know. I thought you didn't want it.
IDIOT: But I need it.
CP: You said you didn't want it.
IDIOT: I need it.
CP: Ok. Then the price is zero.
IDIOT: How can it be zero?
CP: Since I have nothing to give you, I will gladly charge you nothing for nothing.
IDIOT: This is why I'm switching pharmacies.
CP: No you're not. You switched here from somewhere else and now we're stuck with you. This is why you're supposed to be on the courtesy fill program that you keep complaining about every month and yelling that "I can call in my own damn medications". If you were on the program, we could have possibly received a bottle in the last 3 months. We would have had time to find it at another store; or transfer it. Instead, here we are.
IDIOT: I don't want it.
CP: Well good. Lucky for you, we don't have it.
IDIOT: <click>

MICE ELF: So. . . did he need it?
CP: <shrugs> All I heard in my head throughout that was "I don't want it, I just need it. . .
ME: . . . to breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive.
MICE ELF: There has to be something deeper there.
CP: Elbow deep. . .
ME: Stop it.
CP: There's something kinda sad about the way that things have come to be.