RPh = Legerdemainist

Only Best Existing Can Alleviate Life's Problems: I wish to purchase any and all of the following products from this professional dispensary of prescription products. 

CP: Do you always speak to people as if you are performing a google search? 

OBECALP:  Pardon?

CP: What is the best. . . ?

OBECALP: Of course. Only the best shall do. 

CP: Ok. On with the show. How may I help you?

OBECALP: I wish to procure some of your finest Hydrocortisone Cream 1%, Some Aspirin, Zinc, B6, and D3. 

CP: Odd list. Do you have prescriptions?

OBECALP: I do not. 

CP: Are you hoping for your insurance to cover a portion of them? or to be able to use your Health Savings Account to pay for them? 

OBECALP: I am not. 

CP: Then I can show you where these products are located on the OTC shelves. 

OBECALP: That shall not do. 

CP: Ok. May I ask WHY?

OBECALP: The stuff you have behind the counter is much better. It's better because you keep it back there. This I know. Else it would not be hidden back there. 

CP: Yes. We are the Guardians of The Keep. The font of knowledge and special formulations that are secreted within the alcoves among the brick and mortar hallways of our deep pharmacy. It may look small from the outside, but our apothecary elders have granted us knowledge and access to these deep recesses. It's like the Room of Requirement, our pharmacy. 

OBECALP: I knew it. 

CP: Then allow me to retrieve your requirements forthwith, post haste, and without phurther ado. 

<walks to back, exits rear door of pharmacy, enters store from the other side of pharmacy, walks aisles, selects patient's requested products, reenters through back door, pops back up at counter>

And here you are my good man!

OBECALP: Much kindness I wish upon you. 

CP: All in a day's work. 

CPP: <observing; smiling> That was quite the production.

CP: Thanks. 

CPP: Did he ask for "the best and only the Behind the Counter products will work"? 

CP: Of course. 

CPP: Ah, the sweet smell of naivete and marketing. 

CP: It still blows my mind that people think if we reach behind us to just "take bottles off the shelves" they are better than walking out front and just taking THOSE bottles off the shelves". 

CPP: Deception and misdirection. 

CP: Prestidigitation. 

CPP: Hey Rocky, watch my pull this OTC item out of the back. 

CP: If only people knew they were the exact same tablets/capsules/creams back here as they are out front. 

CPP: Even better, when we receive prescriptions for OTC items, if the OTC NDC is covered on Medicaid, we will walk right past the patient, pull it off the shelf, "slap a label on that bitch", and hand it over. Nothing special. 

CP: Except the label.

I Don't Need It. . .Yet

CP: How long ago did we learn to stop asking "how stupid can people be"? 

CPP: Working retail for any amount of time will erode your phaith in the human race. 

CP: Especially the last nearly two years. 

CPP: Indeed. What stories/anecdotes do you have today to represent?

CP: Story number one is phresh out of the gas station by my house. I often do my propane exchanges at this particular location. I love that it is conveniently located near the picnic table adjacent to the front doors. I like to watch people taking their lunch breaks there. 

CPP: I feel there is more. 

CP: On the Propane Cage is a large, bold printed sign that reads: "Danger! No Smoking near Propane". 

CPP: Which they placed next to the break table? 

CP: Upon which all the employees and local ruffians likes to take their cigarette breaks. They could turn around and open the cage while seated, with cigarette dangling like Samuel L. Jackson in Jurassic Park. 

CPP: Yet they've never become airborne particles of their former selves. 

CP: Correct. And I know you will say "so?" and I will reply with "yet". . . Which leads me to the second story. 

CPP: Which is?

CP: How do I sell people on vaccines who are hesitant? 

CPP: Go on. 

CP: I had an insurance agent ask me about vaccinating himself and his family. This was for flu, just about the time the pandemic was in full swing last year and we had yet to receive covid vaccines. 

CPP: I'm with you. 

CP: You sell insurance to people? 

Good Insurance Salesman Talker: I do. 

CP: You are good at what you do? 

GIST: I am. 

CP: Why are you asking my opinion? 

GIST: You are a pharmacist. I have never been sick so I've never had a flu shot and when covid shots come around, I don't think I'll need that either.

CP: I will change your mind. 

GIST: We shall see.

CP: I take it you are well-insured for everything?

GIST: I am. 

CP: Auto, home, life, flood, everything? 

GIST: Yes. 

CP: When was the last time you filed a claim against any of those? House? Car? Flooding? 

GIST: Not in the 25 years we have lived here. 

CP: Nice. Lucky man. I need you to go home and cancel all of your policies today. 

GIST: Why? 

CP: It's a waste of money! You haven't filed a claim in 25 years! That's awesome. It must mean you will never ever need to file one so you can stop throwing away all your money. Get out there and spend it all! Live a little. 

GIST: That's not what I advise my clients. 

CP: Of course not. You advise them to purchase insurance IN CASE they need it. Much like your flu shot, which is free, of course, or any other vaccine, just because you have NEVER BEEN SICK, does not mean you won't be in the phuture. Just because some numbnuts at the gas station hasn't blown himself up yet by smoking in front of the propane tanks does not mean someone won't in the phuture. Just like any investment advice states "past results are not a predictor of phuture returns", the same can be said for stupid people smoking in front of propane tanks or while pumping gas as well as people refusing to receive their vaccinations on the gossamer argument that they haven't been sick. . . yet."

CPP: And how'd that go?

CP: He got my gist. He came back the next day for his shots.

Something New Every Day

CP: Quick and Easy Pharmacy, How may I help you? 

Concerned Recipient At Pharmacy Indicating No Adverse Events or Soreness Still: I'm concerned. 

CP: Hello Concerned. I'm Pharmacist. Why are you like this?

CRAPINÆSS: <serious face> I came in for a flu shot yesterday and I don't have a sore arm or any symptoms.

CP: Great! 

CRAPINÆSS: Not great.

CP: Why not great? 

CRAPINÆSS: I always have a sore arm and a fever after my shot. You gave me the shot so fast. Are you sure I'm inoculated? 

CP: Completely. 

CRAPINÆSS: But my husband gets his shot through the VA and he always has side effects with his shot. I just don't see how you could've given it to me that quick. It was barely a second.

CP: <snickers> Poor guy. I have a way with a syringe. I've been doing it that way for years, as has the person who trained me; he who was among the first to administer vaccines in the area and has trained many Jedi in the ways of the Phorce over the years. 

CRAPINÆSS: It was painless. and short. 

CP: <Stifles laugh> Um, thanks. 

CRAPINÆSS:  <still serious> And it was quick and easy. 

CP: <deadpans> I hear that lot.

CRAPINÆSS: <serious face still on> Good day. 

CP: Good Day. 

UT: Why are you smiling like that?

CP: That LOL

UT: Little Old Lady?

CP: Made me laugh. She was so prim and proper, so serious the whole way through her flu shot complaint, I could barely contain myself. 

UT: What complaint? 

CP: Her shot didn't hurt. At all. Who calls on the pharmacy to complain they have nothing to complain about? 

UT: I'm surprised she didn't ask "is it in" while you gave it to her. 

CP: Please don't ever say "while I gave it to her" again. 

UT: After every flu shot. From now on. How about "How'd she take it?"?

CP: Like all my exes, an inch and a half at a time, all the way to the barrel. 

UT: I think you could've used the 5/8" on her.