Three is NOT Enough!

A lady presents with an Rx for clomid, a medication commonly prescribed to induce ovulation in less fertile females.  This is a standard first line treatment for women who have trouble becoming pregnant for a variety of reasons.  Mind you, women who want to have a baby are for the most part nurturing and loving... the true maternal instinct.  They feel complete as a woman by giving birth and raising children, and those without children who want them feel this need to nurture right down to their bones.  It makes tears well up in your eyes for those who haven't been blessed with children and deserve them...

Back to the lady with the Rx.  She's here at the pharmacy counter with not one, not two, but three little children, one in diapers.  They're all riding in a shopping cart/race car that the grocery uses to keep little people busy while mom tries to shop.  These kids are a handful and the race car isn't helping much.  Little brother keeps running off in his bare feet.  Older sister keeps yelling "Mom, there he goes again!" and runs after him.  Older brother is making a ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM sound as he pretends to drive.

Mother, impatiently waiting for her fertility drug, KEEPS YELLING at ALL THREE OF THEM to SHUT the F--- UP!  Then she grabs the little one by the arm, points her finger and him, and says something I can't quite hear but I can only imagine because he starts to wail.  Just as he's reaching the peak of his scream, a bag of Cheetos bounces off his face, thrown by older brother.  At this point the tech and myself go into overdrive to get that clomid ready so she can run home and have more kids!  After all, THREE is NOT ENOUGH!

Mind Reading Skills

I don't have any mind reading skills. They didn't teach that at pharmacy school. Nor do I have a crystal ball. Every day I get someone here at the pharmacy and I wish I had mind reading skills or a crystal ball. And every time, the patient or whoever looks at ME like I have bananas growing out of my ears for not being able to read their mind or figure out what they want.

Example # 1:

A lady walks up to the counter and says she needs "Crackenspoil" cough drops. I've never heard of them and I'm pretty sure that she's 100% sure that's what they're called despite my trying to ask her if maybe it might be called something else. So I look on our database. No, no such luck. I'd look on the Internet but we're not allowed to have Internet access anymore because too many pharmacists were using it to find doctor names, addresses, OTC product info, etc., and we sure don't want them to be able to do anything like that. So I send them to the competitor across the street. I'm sure they must carry Crackenspoil cough drops.

Example # 2:

Lady: "I need to get my prescription filled."  She says the word "need" like this is a bonafide 9-1-1 emergency and the four horseman of the apocalypse will appear if she doesn't get it.

Me, looking on the computer: "Ok, what is the medication?"

Lady: "I don't know."

Me: "Ok, you had your blood pressure med filled about 20 days ago and your depression med filled about 22 days ago. Is it one of those?"

Lady: "I don't know. It's my little white pill. Don't YOU know what it is?"

Me, standing in front of $200,000 worth of inventory comprised mostly of little white pills, "Well, both of these medications I've mentioned are little and white."

Lady, clearly getting angry: "I don't know why I come to this pharmacy! No one knows anything here!"

Example # 3:

A man comes in to fill a prescription. It's available only in brand name and his insurance doesn't want to pay for it. It says "NDC not covered." So I say to the patient, "Your insurance doesn't want to pay for this medication. It's either not on your formulary or requires a prior authorization." So then he asks, "Why?"

I don't know why.  My crystal ball is broken.

Happy Green Day!

Sunday, Time to LOL

Beauty Shop Scare Prank

Boogity boogity!

Cool prank, but was it a good idea to do this with scissors all over the place?

Beware... R rated...

Beauty Shop Scare Prank

Don't Want to Share a Bench?

So, you're out in public. You need to sit and wait at a local restaurant. There's only so many seats available to wait, but by golly you sure don't want a crazy pharmacist to sit next to you. You want to sit in peace and read your AARP magazine without being bothered. So all you have to do is sit far enough away from one edge, cross your legs like you're Dick Cavett, have your shirt unbuttoned, wear cheap jewelry, and proudly display your "mandals" to scare off any potential bench-sitters. Also, place your "man bag" far enough over so that no one can actually sit at the other end of the bench. Mission accomplished! The Crazy RxMan stayed far away from that bench!

Dark Sun Glasses, the FIRST Giveaway

Pharmacists pick up on the subtle but then there's the obvious. If you're going to pass a fake Rx, your FIRST step is DON'T WEAR DARK SUN GLASSES. You'd think they'd figure it out by now. But no, they haven't. Week after week, WEEKEND after WEEKEND, here they come marching in with the fake prescriptions... Oxycodone 30mg #120, nearly perfect handwriting, filled out with date of birth and even address. Yeah, all my busy doctors do that, sure. 

But the first dead giveaway is the dark sunglasses. It immediately says you're hiding something. And apparently there are still a few pharmacists out there who never question any of it, and maybe that's why you do it. 

But don't expect to come around my pharmacy wearing dark sunglasses. I'm going to immediately check your Rx top to bottom, inside and out, to figure out if it's a fake.