Dec. 10: My favourite pharmacy

 When I first moved to the small town where I live right now, I took an apartment on Centre Street. The reason I did that was because my place of employment was right across the street. Also within walking distance: a convenience store, the post office, and the pharmacy.

The pharmacy was a Shoppers' Drug Mart that was in the same building where my office was. I still live in that same apartment. My workplace has not moved. The Shoppers Drug Mart has. It is now located on my town's Main Street a good kilometre down the road. The owners of the Shoppers Drug Mart didn't think their old locale was big enough. They wanted a larger store, one with a grocery and electronics section, so they rebuilt.

I was sad when it happened. I liked the convenience of the Shoppers Drug Mart being right across the street. If I had a late night craving for a bottle of Dr. Pepper or a bag of Old Dutch salt and vinegar potato chips, I could easily run out the door.

If I was a woman, there would have been another reason why I should be so happy that the Shoppers was right across the street. This became evident to me when a female friend visited me once in the summer of 2006. She used my bathroom and was visibly upset when she came out. At first, I thought it was because of my Calgary Flames towel set but she was upset for another reason.

"Is there a drug store nearby?" she asked.

"Sure. Why?"

She gave me an exasperated look. 

I'm such an idiot. I didn't clue in. She had to explain things to me.

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Well, the smart people on Shoppers Drug Mart's board of directors know that maximizing profit is more important than making Shteevie's life as convenient as possible. For this reason, I do not begrudge them for moving to the Main Street. The store is much bigger than the old store and, because of that, they are able to offer more things for sale. Here is a partial list of things you can get at the bigger store that you couldn't get at the smaller one:

- 2% milk

- A book rack with paperback novels by Nora Roberts, What Shat That, and magazines that are dedicated to the Beatles

- Five billion different varieties of Doritos

- Jars of stringed cheese that float in something yucky

- Boxes of bargain bin DVDs that no one really wants (like Santa with Muscles or Christmas Vacation)

- PS5 games that are rated Mature and have cover art depicting US marines fighting zombies

- Big massive cases of Pepsi

- Shelves that are dedicated to Christmas decorations

- Awesome automatic blood pressure machines that I always insist on using. There's just something awesome about feeling that cool sleeve close around your bicep. BTW... my blood pressure is amazing except when my kid is eating Skilttles in my car. More on that later.

- This poster right here:

I see that poster everytime I walk into the Shoppers Drug Mart. I am CONVINCED the woman in that poster in an actress who was in a play I wrote and directed back in 1997. I have no way of finding out of that's true. It drives me crazy. The expression on her face is the same as the one that was on my lady friend's face when I told her there was a pharmacy right across the street. I doubt the woman in the poster is smiling for the same reason though. She is probably smiling because Shoppers Drug Mart is paying her to take her picture. She's all "Yay!!! I can pay by hydro bill just by walking across this field." 

I wonder if people recognize that woman when she's out on the street. I wonder if they stop her at the hardware store or at Berk's Fried Chicken and say "Hey aren't you the girl from the Shoppers Drug Mart poster?" and she would say "yeah" and then they would say "and did you act in a Shteevie play back in 1997?" and she would say "ugh, don't remind me" and then she would go home and eat Berk's Fried Chicken and fart.

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And here are things that I know for a fact are located at the Shoppers Drug Mart in my town:

- Pink Hubba Bubba bubble gum

- Kinder Eggs

- Cheetos

- Kitkats

- Skittles

- Thomas the Train toys- Chocolate chip muffins - Schneider's meat packs

I know that all of those things are available because everytime I take my kid in there, he thinks he is entitled to EVERY SINGLE ITEM on that list. The Skittles are his favourite because he likes to lick them while sitting in the back seat of my car and then throw them everywhere so that they turn my car into a massive multi-coloured hard garbage paste. 

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My town has three pharmacies. There is Shoppers, there is Jean Coutu, and a new one just went up right across the street from me. The new pharmacy does not have Skittles or Kinder Eggs do I will probably keep going to Shoppers.

I have had a number of prescriptions filled at Shoppers over the year. Once I got an ear infection and had to get antibiotics there. One winter I developed a painful rash on my upper thighs and had to get some medical cream to rub on it. I have bought all kinds of allergy medicine there. Also, my kid suffers from a condition called acute cuteness so he has to get regular refills of stopbeingsocute. It's expensive and it's not covered by my insurance so I have stopped getting it for him. My kid still suffers from extreme cuteness so I went to a naturopath who told me that the condition would go away if he simply wore a Vancouver Canucks jersey.

And at that point I rest.