Old people
Old
people
take
so
long
in
lines
I get these really bad heart palpitations from time to time. It’s excruciatingly painful. Thanks to universal healthcare I’m able to get pills to ease the pain and let me carry on a normal day.
Last week, unfortunately, I ran out of pills and made an emergency run to the drug store. This woman who’s probably in her 80s is talking with the pharmacist, clogging the line for close to half an hour, asking silly questions, asking the same questions over and over again. Humming and hawing about how much to buy, what not to get and so forth. I’m sprawled out on the friggen blood-pressure test chair (they don’t have waiting chairs) having what feels like a fucking heart attack.
It’s clear to everyone, except this woman, that I’m in severe agony. She’s the only thing between me and relief.
At this point I realize that everyone is lined up in the “pick up prescription” line up. Nobody, however, is at the “drop off” prescription lineup. I slip over to the drop-off line and politely ask if I can pick up my prescription there. Within the next 30 seconds I have the pill down my throat.
Praise Allah!
Old people are worse when you go the bank. What is worse is the clerks who do not hurry them along.
No, I don’t miss being a pharmacy technician.
Once in a while I look into an old person’s eyes and I see a 20-year-old trapped in a 129-year-old’s body. That shit freaks me out. This is because I know, deep down, that one day I’ll be there as well. That I’ll need to wear diapers to stop me shitting my pants. That a nurse will have to spoon feed me and I will dribble pureed broccoli down my dressing gown. It’s a worry, because I know that there will come a time in my life when I’ll be treated like a child, all because I’ve become an incredibly old man who just doesn’t care if he goes to London Drugs without putting on any trousers.