But it's NEVER Happened Before...

"I'm here to pick up my husband's prescription."  

"What is his date of birth?"

"Jones."

"What is his date of birth?"

"It should be on the shelf waiting."

"What is his date of birth?" I ask again.

"Jones. Bill Jones."

(That's not his real name. I use fake names in the blog in case you were wondering. And that's not really a picture of the lady either. But she sure looked like that.)

"Ok, I've got that. We have several Jones in our database. What is Mr. Jones' DATE OF BIRTH?" I'm in a balancing act now with not appearing irritated and actually being extremely irritated.

Finally Mrs. Jones gives me the birth date, I look on the computer, get the Rx, and start processing the sale at the register.

"Would you like to use your club card," I ask.

"I don't have a club card."

"Oh, that's too bad. This is a high dollar transaction. You could earn a lot of points with this transaction."

"Here's my club card."

I knew she was lying. I scan the card.

"Will Goofmart Grocery up front know that I am buying this medication?" she asks.

"I would assume they will know you made a big purchase, but the medication name will be confidential."

(Among other things, she's buying BRAND Valium for Mr. Jones.)

"I don't want to use my club card."

I sigh. I have to back out the entire transaction and start again. That's so extremely annoying.

I get it all in again and say, "Ok, that will be $542.00." (It's a lot of Valium and some other brand name drugs).

Mrs. Jones writes a check. Three minutes of my already shortened life disappears. I stick it in the register and it says, "Transaction Declined."

I tell her the bad news.

"I've never had that happen before."

"Do you want to use a credit card, or perhaps another checking account?"

"Try it again."

Same result.

"I've never had that happen before," she says again.

"I believe you," I tell her. I lied.

"Well what are you going to do?" she asks.

I call for a manager. The manager sees the reject and asks if she wrote any other checks today. She says her husband wrote a check for $700 somewhere else. The manager tells her that's probably the issue and that her bank probably limits the amount of funds she can spend daily. Manager exits, stage right.

"I've never had that happen before," she says once again. "Well, what are you going to do?" 

At this point I've had enough. "I'm going to put these medications back on the shelf until you come up with an alternative form of payment."

"Well, I've never had this happen before," she mumbles as she walks away.