Save the Local Drugstore

My phone rang a few minutes ago. The caller was a young man from the pharmaceutical insurance and supply company that services retired New Jersey state employees. He wanted us to save ourselves some money by arranging for generic medications to be delivered by mail instead of picking them up at our local pharmacy. (Cue video of smiling elderly actress hobbling to her door on her walker and welcoming the mailman, who grins and hands her a life-saving package of drugs.)

I said, no, thank you. He said, but the first shipment is free. I said, we buy our drugs from the pharmacist around the corner because we want to keep him in business. That is your reason, then? he said. I expect he was entering something on his computer. Yes, I said. Even if it would save you money? Yes, I said. We parted cordially.

He seemed like a nice young man, and what the hell, he had a job, not like a lot of young fellows of my acquaintance. After I hung up the phone I said to Harold, I should have talked to him longer. Maybe I could have got him on our side. Yes, Harold said. The two of you could go and camp out at Occupy Trenton.

But the thing about keeping the local druggist in business is more important than money. It's a quality of life issue. I would have to be really up against it, I would have to be down to eating cat food, before I would consent to have generic drugs sent to me in the mail. (The mail? Really? You do know that the Post Office is cutting services, right?) I could die three times before the medications got here, to begin with. I am not, and I do not propose to become, one of those old ladies who takes so many drugs that even her doctor has forgotten what she's on, what the side effects might be, whether they're even effective. That handful of pills I swallow every morning are nutritional supplements. Nutritional supplements. Not offered by the monstrous pharmaceutical insurance and supply company. And the occasional over-the-counter allergy pill.

When I do need a prescription drug, it's for some passing ailment, and I need it right away to encourage the ailment to pass. I take a short stroll downtown, I hand the prescription to Morty Barnett at Bear Pharmacy, he gives me my pills or whatever. Him I smile at. I do not smile at faceless bureaucrats packing pills in a mailroom somewhere.

Actually it's just as well that I didn't unload this rant on that fellow on the telephone. It might have spoiled his day.