While most people take their weekend getaways at sunny little B&B’s, recently I’ve taken to spending some nice relaxing weekends in the Mental Health Suite at the local emergency room. (why pay for an expensive getaway when there are much more affordable options available right in your backyard?) If I’m lucky enough I can even get someone to drop me off so I don’t even have to pay the extortionate price for parking! Sometimes I even get prescriptions for some fun mind altering drugs, and that is where this story begins…
After a night chillaxin’ on the most uncomfortable bed ever with nothing but a threadbare sheet protecting me from the icy blast of the air conditioning (I guess nobody told them it was still below freezing out) I had a friend pick me up to take me straight to get my fancy new prescription filled at the pharmacy. This time I was met with an unfamiliar face at the front desk as I handed over my prescription for a mood stabilizing drug.
To my surprise, I was greeted with the question “Do you need this today or can you perhaps come back in a few days?” I paused for a moment, confused, perhaps I was hallucinating?
My overly tired and under medicated brain immediately said to me: “Seriously?! Are you kidding me?! What the hell?! Surely a pharmacist should recognize that the brand name drug I was prescribed was for a mental health condition, and even if they didn’t know that, maybe they should have clued in that it was written TODAY by the hospital EMERGENCY department? What kind of sick joke is this?!”
It took every ounce of my already shaky self control to state that NO… I could not in fact wait a few days for this medication and that YES… I was going to wait for it in the store.
For some reason this seemed to upset the poor pharmacist. Clearly, she had never taken the phrase “Smile and nod at the crazy lady” to heart. She seemed to be going with the much less orthodox approach of “poke the crazy lady with a sharp stick and maybe she will go away.” (BTW this does not work on crazy ladies OR bears, both of which could be equally dangerous when provoked in any way and really should not be prodded in any way) She looked rather annoyed at me for giving her more work when she was already busy. She tried again to dissuade me by saying that it could take up to an hour and a half for it to be prepared and wouldn’t I rather just come back some other time?
Now, as with anyone who has spent a restless night with very little sleep, I suddenly thought “Is this a prank? Am I on a TV show? Where are the hidden cameras?!” I mean sure… in an ideal world I wouldn’t have to come back at all! I wouldn’t need expensive prescription drugs to be able to function within society. I should just be “normal” like other people. (People who apparently can’t think their way through a situation and not agitate the crazy lady that just got out of the mental ward!)
At this point I became very visibly upset, my mind was spinning faster and faster trying desperately to find a reasonable explanation for her actions. I was getting ready to blast this new pharmacist with a bit of much needed common sense, (which is sadly not so common) I was barely able to retrain myself and just stared wild-eyed at my chauffeur hoping that he could somehow bring some sanity back into this interaction.
My ever-patient chauffeur was thankfully a little more intuitive that the pharmacist and caught on that perhaps things were about to “escalate quickly” and advised me that perhaps I should “retract my claws”. The unique phrase he chose was just enough to break the tension allowing me to advise the pharmacist (through gritted teeth) that, while any sane person would “rather” just deal with things when it wouldn’t take up an unnecessarily extended period of their time, I however actually DID prefer to take my mood stabilizing drugs BEFORE I did something stupid and therefore there was no option in this matter, and that I was willing to wait as long as it took.
The pharmacist let out a very audible sigh and informed me that it would be “at least an hour and a half” but she finally agreed to fill my prescription ASAP. This was good news; however, it did not escape my notice that my persistence seemed to surprise the pharmacist far more than it should have.
And I’m the crazy one?!
~ Elena <3
