Swayin' like a slow freight train

2003-09-15 - 9:21 p.m.

This morning at 4:30 I woke up. Why? I have no idea. And I couldn't fall back asleep, either. It totally sucked. I lay awake in bed for an hour until my alarm went off at 5:30.

I worked today in a community pharmacy about 50 miles north of my home. According to my schedule I was supposed to be there at 8:30. I arrived at about quarter to eight so I sat out in the car and read my book for a while. When I went inside, the pharmacy was all locked up. I sure didn't have a key. So I hung out in the OTC aisles finding where everything was located and seeing what's changed since I last wandered through an OTC aisle. My biggest discovery is what's actually in Alavert. Have you noticed that in the commercials they never actually say? Turns out it's exactly the same as Claritin, and, in this store at least, exactly the same price.

The pharmacy was supposed to open at 9. At 8:55 a tech showed up carrying a cashbox and a key. She gave me the key and I opened the pharmacy. We were immediately swamped with customers. Just a helpful hint to anybody willing to listen, if you ever need to go to a pharmacy first thing in the morning, consider giving them five to ten minutes to get the computers up and running before you go. The service will be much better. Of course, in my opinion, we should have been inside starting up the computers before nine so we would be ready to go at nine, but it seems most people are less concerned with their punctuality than I am.

At any rate, from 9 until 2 I was the only pharmacist on the premises. That was a first for me, being completely in charge. And it went just fine. In fact, I liked it. This pharmacy, apparently, has only had one full-time pharmacist working for them for over two years. They have a few regulars who come in every once in a while, but usually it's just the one person. And guess who one of their regular filler-inners is? You'll never guess. It's Tampon! Yeah, seriously. The techs were asking me when I could come back and I was thinking, "Any day Tampon's not here."

At two another pharmacist came in to help out until closing. I was scheduled to leave at 5:30. On the way home I was having flashbacks again. When was the last time I was driving down that road in that car? I don't remember the exact date but I think it was December two years ago. I was coming home from Stretch's house. I remember being so happy. Not that I was leaving, but that I had such a good thing going on. I remember it was dark outside and it was threatening rain, but not actually raining. That section of road has a railroad track running parallel to it only yards away. As I was driving there was a train going the same direction as I was. I turned off my radio and rolled down the window to listen to the sound of the train and smell the impending rain and feel the cool wind in my face. It was all so wonderful. I had just finished slowly passing the train when I came to the spot where the railroad tracks cross the road and continue on parallel to the road but on the other side. I had to stop and wait for the entire train to cross in front of me and then I began the process of passing it all over again. Driving today brought back all those sensations and feelings. And of course I wonder, what happened?