Not Hollering at the Pharmacist

I returned from the pharmacy with two paper bags with my old-dude pills. Ripped them open. One contained, instead of my prescription, an open bottle of Ibuprofen. Whaaaat?

Being a prudent person, I carefully checked the packaging. No other bottle. And as my indignance grew, I began rehearsing my speech to the pharmacist. Why a speech? Because everything about pharmacies these days is messed up. I was already on my last nerve.

In my imagination, the pharmacist insisted she'd filled it right, and I took her to task, emphasizing the LIFE OR DEATH nature of her sacred mission and scolding her for blame-shifting when she owed me an APOLOGY.

Before driving back to the pharma to speak my lines and retrieve my pills, I figured I'd hastily double-check the discarded packaging. And there, of course, was my correct pill bottle. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what getting old is like.

Three takeaways:

1. When things get weird, check twice.

2. Raise your anger threshold every year. Otherwise you WILL be "that guy". The older you get, the less you must holler. Burn that into your brain. Old people hollering cluelessly is like Jewish stinginess or black people publicly eating watermelon. Go the other way! Do not give them the satisfaction!

3. Napoleon's great quote, "Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence," has a corollary for the over-55 set: "Never ascribe to society's decline that which is adequately explained by your decline."

I still don't know how the Ibuprofen got into my hand. Must have been on the shelf next to me. The older I get, the more strangely objects behave.


See more posts about aging here, and more amusing anecdotes here, and more "funny" postings here (notice the index of "labels" - aka tags - in the left margin, below "Popular Entries").