"Excuse Me, Do You Work Here?"

Comic Wednesday!

2012-08-22T07:12:00.001-04:00

"Excuse Me, Do You Work Here?" Has Its First Anniversary!

2012-08-18T07:36:00.001-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-08-15T06:44:00.003-04:00

The Benefits Of Makeup

2012-08-14T17:54:00.001-04:00

People can do so many things with makeup. It can be used to enhance natural beauty, hide flaws, or scare the crap out of people on Halloween. Except for the third one, men rarely use the stuff, and don't really care to know much about it, unless it's used to cover up flaws. And these flaws aren't always the readily visible types.

It's late afternoon, on a day where an hour feels like a week, when a younger guy comes in to the store. He's probably in his late teens, possibly early twenties. He has a problem, and needs makeup to hide it.

The big problem is a glaring red monstrosity on his neck. It looks like he has been burned by the Curling Iron From Hell. If it were any bigger, an alien life form would likely pop out at any given moment.

"I need to hide this. Do you think makeup could work?" I don't have the heart to tell him that the thickest foundation in the world wouldn't be up to that task.

It's obvious that this poor boy has a bad hickey, and no idea how to hide it. He probably wants to hide it from the disapproving eyes of Grandma.

Actually, Grandma's reaction probably wouldn't be as bad as the reaction of the person this young man is actually trying to hide the hickey from. His girlfriend might not be too happy to see the hickey, considering the fact that she wasn't the one who gave it to him in the first place.

At this point, the young man is trying to find the foundation that matches his skin tone. He looks sheepish, like he has already been caught in a lie. And judging by the hickey on his neck, there was no way for him to hide it, even with the thickest clown makeup money could buy. The Band-Aid suggestion has been refused, as it would draw more attention to the problem area.

Because a violent red, oozing hickey didn't draw attention on it's own. And a violent red, oozing hickey with some foundation slapped on certainly wouldn't catch the attention of his girlfriend.

The man leaves with a bottle of foundation, but the shame clings to him. I never saw him again, so I couldn't ask if his girlfriend ever noticed the hickey, but unless he was dating a blind girl, he likely learned that makeup can't conceal everything.

Comic Wednesday!

2012-08-08T07:29:00.000-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-08-01T06:47:00.001-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-07-25T08:47:00.002-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-07-18T07:37:00.000-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-07-11T08:04:00.001-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-07-04T07:27:00.001-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-06-27T07:36:00.003-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-06-20T06:40:00.001-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-06-13T08:14:00.000-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-06-06T09:09:00.003-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-05-30T08:05:00.002-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-05-23T08:32:00.001-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-05-16T07:53:00.000-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-05-09T07:42:00.000-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-05-02T07:57:00.002-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-04-25T07:53:00.002-04:00

"I'm Having An Allergic Reaction"

2012-04-19T08:36:00.000-04:00

One early Monday morning, a young girl came running into the pharmacy with a friend. Her face was puffed out to about twice what it should have been, a large rash had started on her arms, and her eyes and nose were both running like faucets.

"I'm having an allergic reaction. I have trouble breathing. What should I do?"

I'm no miracle worker, and when it comes to something as vital as breathing, I don't mess around. I told the girl to go right to the hospital, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

"But I have an exam this morning! I can't go to the hospital!"

I then tried to calmly explain to her that any teacher in their right mind would take one look at her puffy face and would ship her out to the hospital and let her write the exam at a later date. If not, any teacher would accept a note from the doctor, because no teacher wants to be responsible for the student who stops breathing during an exam due to an allergic reaction.

"Can't I just take something to make it all go away?" I wanted to tell her that antihistamines aren't a magic wand, but pointed her to the Benadryl regardless. I explained to her that it might make her sleepy, and therefore going to the hospital would be her best best. This was met with more complaining, and she sat down to scratch the large rash that had broken out on her legs.

"Just write the exam tomorrow!" piped up her friend. My colleague and myself nodded our heads in agreement.

"I'm so stressed out! I just want to write the exam!" wailed the girl.

"But your nose is going to drip all over it anyway! You can write it tomorrow!" The friend then explained that she is actually the girl's instructor, and brought her to the pharmacy because it was quite evident that the girl's state was not one ideal for exam writing.

"I'll just take the Benadryl. I won't fall asleep and this will all go away," said the girl, as she continued to scratch at her legs and used her other hand to wipe her running nose.

The girl bought her Benadryl and left with her instructor. The girl informed my colleague that her exam was at the aesthetic school, and was actually a practical exam on epilation. She then blew her nose for the ten millionth time and left.

I don't know if she managed to do the exam or not, but I certainly pity the person who went in for a leg wax and got more than just wax smeared all over.

Comic Wednesday!

2012-04-18T08:03:00.000-04:00

Comic Wednesday!

2012-04-11T07:35:00.002-04:00

On Requesting The Impossible

2012-04-06T08:51:00.000-04:00

This story was related to me by a colleague:

On a quiet Friday afternoon, I received a long distance phone call from the United States. First thing they did was insist on speaking with my boss, who of course never works Fridays and never has. It took me a bit, but I finally managed to convince them that I was indeed the must qualified and competent person they could speak with at the present time, so they got down to business.

"I need Fentanyl lollipops, dear. How long would it take for you to FedEx them to me?"

There are many reasons why this question would elicit a facepalm. Firstly, Fentanyl is a heavy-duty narcotic. All precriptions for Fentanyl are thoroughly checked out to make sure that the prescription is valid, and that it is compatible with any other medications the patient may be taking.

Secondly, I'd never even heard of them making Fentanyl in lollipop form (it's made in trans-dermal patches and injectables, so I had a funny image of someone licking the patches)- only a Google search confirmed their existence. Therefore, these would have to be made by a pharmacy that specializes in compounding, who would also require copies of the original prescription to be verified. There is only one pharmacy that I knew of that might have been able to make this special medication, but even then I wasn't sure.

Thirdly, this was an American man calling, and even if he had a valid prescription in the States, it wouldn't be valid here.

After I explained all of these points clearly to the man, he tried what he thought would be his trump card: "I'm a personal friend of your boss. He's done this for me in the past. How long have you been working there, anyway? Don't you know who I am?"

A quick computer check proved that the man had never opened a file in our pharmacy, and it would be impossible to have FedExed him this product in the past without some sort of record. Without a valid prescription, there is no way this would have made it past the border.

However, the man kept insisting that our pharmacy, because of my boss being his personal friend, had definitely sent him Fentanyl lollipops in the past. I calmly tried to explain to him that our boss wouldn't do this for his own cousin, let alone an American man with no patient file whatsoever. He grew more irate, and eventually just hung up on me (though in my imagination, he likely slammed down the phone, then did a Google search for another pharmacy he could bug).

This was one of those moments where my coworker's advocacy for drinking on the job seemed entirely reasonable!

Comic Wednesday!

2012-04-04T08:14:00.002-04:00