Monday, April 19, 2010

Not your average drugstore

We are visiting family in downstate New York. I thought the main trick was navigating their driving as a competitive sport...until yesterday. We were near the end of our three-hour-tour. (MANY quick outings here turn into what Gilligan and the other castaways THOUGHT they were heading for.) Then we decided to pick up our last few items at CVS (or as I will now refer to as Considerably Vile Shopping).

We walked in to find that there were no shopping carts. I never take that as a good sign as it means that there are so many shoppers that the carts are gone. Then I saw it...the eight people waiting in line to check out (and nobody had a cart)! I was in no mood, as it was my lunch time, and I could've stood a nap as well. My step-mother went to the back of the store to take her place (sixth in line) at the prescription counter. That seemed like the jackpot! I left my daughter and step-mother at the prescription counter and began my whirling dervish to gather what we needed in time to meet them at the register.

As I was coming around the corner with three two-liter bottles of soda in my arms, I saw that my daughter had been sent out of the queue. What? Wait? Why? As now I can see that the regular register line had grown so long that it almost met the pharmacy holding pen! Apparently my stepmother noticed that the man behind her might have been planning her death in the event that she even TRIED to put our purchases on that counter, and released our basket holder! I relocated her to the Space Mountain line, and wondered when they'd be bringing out the Disney velvet ropes.

I still had some shopping to do, so the 15 pounds of soda and I kept pacing. I wanted to pick up a belated birthday gift, and there was the flip board of gift cards---oooh, itunes! I had to go check with my stepmother to see if that was a good idea--kinda. Then on my way back I realized there were movie theater ones. Not being from the area, I wasn't sure if their theaters were Regal Entertainment (I know they were selling them in this area, but I was not convinced that there was much rhyme or reason to what was going on in this store). I ran back to the pharmacy to ask about the local movie theaters-no help, so I asked strangers (so sorry to interrupt your fascinating time waiting on line...geesh!). I didn't get a lot of help.

I have to add here that I couldn't just go with the itunes card because, along with Dunkin Donuts, it seems like something you get someone when you don't know what else to get them. In my ridiculous mind, I thought that because I knew our uncle liked to go to the movies, THAT gift card would look more thoughtful! I blame my insanity on that ever-growing line!

At one point I saw my daughter starting to step a little sideways in line, and also saw three vipers behind her ready to slither right into her spot! I had to shout for her to "Stay in line!"

Eventually, the weight of the soda got to me, and I joined my daughter in line. Make no mistake, I had not gotten everything we needed...I had just given up! It was also starting to look like my ten-year-old wouldn't be able to defend herself against the rest of the line.

The next moment of insanity came when I saw the store manager with a handful of twenty's, looking "for the woman he got change for a hundred for"!! What? Who walks away after giving someone a hundred dollar bill to make change? In a mosh pit of a check out line? Then I heard one of the cashiers ask him if she had white hair...his response "I don't really know what she looked like." I was about to approach him and say "Did she look like me? I think so. Thanks!" What an ultra-maroon!! (thanks Bugs) The woman came to, after seeing the slithering line had probably disoriented her, and claimed her money.

We made it out of the store, and now need to find someplace ELSE to go to get the items we forgot. I cannot spend fifteen more minutes of my vacation on a line that doesn't end with a water slide!!






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