Come with me while I take you on a tour. A journey of the mind, if you will. Now close your eyes. Close them dammit. They’re still open, what’s your deal, I told you to close your freaking eyes! If you’re not going to participate why are you even reading this? Now close your freaking fracking eyes!
Now imagine you’re going to a grocery store. Why aren’t you imagining this? What is up with you today? First you won’t close your eyes when I ask you super nicely to, and now that I finally convinced you to close your eyes you won’t read along and oooh now I get it.
Open your eyes.
Please open your eyes.
Ok I’m just going to wait for you to get bored and open them. I’m waiting. Really, you aren’t bored yet? You’ve got a bit of drool.
Oh. I see. You fell asleep. How embarrassing for you. Oh watch out you’re gonna hit your—hi there, sleepy head! No I don’t know why your head hurts. Now follow along dammit.
Imagine you walk into a grocery store, thinking “Hmm, I need some milk!” For some reason you added an exclamation mark in your head. You seem weirdly excited about getting milk. Maybe instead of milk, you should seek therapy. But I think that’s a subject for a different post. Right now you’re going into the grocery store prancing and skipping like a little idiot, so bloody excited to get your milk.
Anyway, you walk up to the customer service desk, and say “Hi there. I need some milk. I ran out.” Or maybe you say “I’m on vacation and I forgot to bring milk with me. Do you sell milk?”
No matter what the response is (you weren’t really listening, anyway. You were just asking in a polite fashion because your mom “raised you right”. Yeah. Okay.) you say “great, can I just get some for free?” Again, when they respond you totally zone out, and then say “Well how the hell am I supposed to get any milk then? I need that milk! You’re just going to make me walk around all day without any calcium? That’s so irresponsible of you! What do you mean I should have planned ahead and bought milk before mine expired? Screw you, I’m taking my money somewhere else, and I’m reporting you! No I don’t know to who! God!” Then you storm out of the store. What a bunch of pricks that they have working there, hey? Good thing you made your point! Assholes, not giving you free milk.
Let’s switch gears a little bit here. No no no, keep your eyes open! Oh crap, I lost you again. Okay, I’m going to the bathroom.
How does your head feel this time? Quit your bitching.
Now let’s imagine you’ve stumbled upon a drug store (your calcium deprived brain has no memory of how you got there), and you decide to go in and see what you can rustle up for yourself.
You head up to the pharmacist and stand inappropriately close to the lady at the counter who is describing a very intimate problem she is having (she pee’s her pants and needs to get some Depends. Either that or she can’t depend on her husband Pete to wear pants. You saw something shiny and only half paid attention.) When she leaves to either go buy diapers or take her husband to seek therapy the way you should be doing, you ask the pharmacist “Hey, do you guys sell pills here?”
The pharmacist, rightfully, seems suspicious. She asks (you assumed it was a he, didn’t you? Didn’t you?!?! Oh yeah?? Well she’s black too, you sexist racist pig.) Anyway, the black female lesbian pharmacist with only one leg asks “Okayyy, do you have a prescription?” to which you respond “No, but I know what I need.”
She then decides that she doesn’t want to keep her job, and listens intently as you describe the exact quantity and dosage you need of your oxycontin.
Just kidding. She tells you in the most pleasant voice she can muster that she can’t just hand over a bucket of pills just because you say so, she needs to have a written doctor’s prescription. No, it doesn’t matter that you remember what it said and you just can’t seem to find it right now, she doesn’t feel like getting fired today.
Of course you give her the same spiel that you gave at the grocery store about how you can go to any other pharmacy out there and they’ll just dump whatever pills you want directly into your pockets, (They will? THEN GO THERE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!) and then you storm out and tell everyone that you pass that this place is the shittiest place ever, and they should not shop there. Those customers, of course, take your advice to heart and leave immediately, because you don’t look insane at all.
Now let’s combine these two scenarios. Take these two separate situations and cram them together into one. Wanna know what you get?
Contact lens customers.
This happens many times a week. We get someone who knows exactly what their prescription is (I think it was minus one point banana doughnut. Yes it was! No, you don’t know what you’re talking about! Get me your manager! What do you mean she’s at home?? It’s 9:00 on a Friday night, why isn’t she here?!??!) and then they get mad at us because we won’t hand over some free trials anyway. They are on vacation, you see, and they didn’t bring a back up pair, or their prescription, or any glasses, and they’ve been wearing this current pair for about 4 months now, and if their eyes rot and fall out of their heads, it is going to be my damn fault!
You know it’s really bad when the same situation ends with “Oh, okay, I guess it’s my own fault anyway. Have a good night!” and we are rendered absolutely speechless.
Now how does your head feel?
