Dispatches From the Fortress – Day 527

Yesterday, I had to wait in a long line at a CVS Pharmacy for a prescription and I didn't mind. The line was long because there was an unexpected (by the store) surge of people wanting to get vaccinations there. The lady who ultimately waited on me told me they were waiting for another employee — someone qualified to administer shots — to arrive. The one person on their staff who was qualified couldn't give the jabs and see that prescriptions were properly filled at the same time.

I have no idea what, if anything in particular, caused the stampede and I have no reason to think it was the same way at other CVSes, which I hope is the proper way to pluralize the store name. I got to talking with one young couple waiting for their jabs. "We finally decided it was time to get it done," the lady said. Maybe it just takes some people a while to get around to maybe saving their lives.

It was crowded in the store with folks not getting vaccinations, too. Every store employee was trying to do eleven things at once. The line to checkout if you didn't use the self-service option reached all the way to the next-closest CVS.

Around the pharmacy area, there was one older woman who kept asking — in way too loud a voice — where to find the Stool Softener. After the third or fourth such request, I said "And she really sounds like she needs it" and got a big laugh from everyone who heard me. It was not my proudest moment.

After I finally got my prescription, I picked up a few other items and then used the CVS self-service check-out to pay for them. I had coupons and my ExtraCare discount that took a $21.00 order down to $7.35. The machine then proceeded to spit out a checkout receipt so long that you could have wrapped it around the body of Pharaoh Tutankhamun in lieu of bandages.

The woman trying to checkout at the self-checkout counter next to me was utterly baffled as to how to use the thing. No store employee seemed to have the time to help her so I did — and when I saw that one of the items she was purchasing was Colace, I realized she was the Stool Softener Lady. She said to me, "I'm sorry…I've never used one of these checkout things before but I simply couldn't wait in that line for a human cashier." No, I guess she couldn't.