Labor Day Blues

I worked on Labor Day this year, but we were only open for a few hours. It seemed like it would be an easy shift.

Nope.

Ten minutes before closing a lady shows up with two prescriptions for a young boy. I couldn't turn them away. No decent pharmacist would. 

She asks me when I close. I tell her I'm closing in ten minutes but I can get these two prescriptions done quickly. I tell the lady to stay at the register. Three minutes later I'm labeling up the bottle of Cephalexin when I look up. She's gone.

So I finish up the Prednisone solution and I see her walking by. Quickly, I yell out, "I have them ready!"

"I'll be right back," she says, wandering off again.

Five minutes later and now five minutes AFTER we're supposed to close, she comes back to the register, holding a Halloween ornament from the grocery and wants to know how much it is. She's on her cell phone (her husband I assume) and they're arguing about whether they can afford it or not.

It's $10. Ten freaking dollars.

It takes another five minutes for them to decide while I just stand there. Seriously. I have the medications ready and I want to close and have some time off but she's going to argue with her husband while I stand there and wait. I wanted to grab that damn cell phone out of her hand and smash it on the counter. Those thoughts actually occur to me a lot. And if you're reading this I know those same thoughts have gone through your mind too. Don't lie. 

They finally decide not to get it. I get the meds and a bag of Cheetos rung up in the register and then, THEN she decides to inform me that her son has a secondary billing to bring the prescriptions to zero. So I have to go BACK to the computer and reprocess and zero out the register and start over.

Upon seeing that the amount is less, NOW she wants to call her husband back and see if they can get the Halloween decoration. 

I'm stunned. 

After the second phone call, they decide not to get it. But she buys the bag of Cheetos with a credit card. Finally, I get to counsel her on the boy's medication.

Some prescriber wants him to have 6.25ml every six hours. Yeah, that's something the average patient can measure. Sure.

I tell her to give him 6ml three times and then a final 7ml each day and to do that for ten days.

"What?"

"The daily dosage is 25ml divided into four doses. That's why the physician wrote 6.25ml four times daily. But you'll never be able to measure 6.25ml. I'm making it easier for you by telling you to give him 6ml, 6ml, 6ml, and then 7ml each day. 6+6+6+7=25."

"But if the doctor said to give him 6.25ml then that's what I should give him!" she argues.

<sigh>

I've had enough. It's now twenty minutes past closing.

I replied "Ok, good luck with that. Thanks for your business," as I start closing the gate. "Bye."

Euthanize me.