Crazy Sh*t

Laxatives. Not exactly the word I thought I would start a blog with, but they’re on my mind – although, not for the reason you might think….

Friday night, I went to the pharmacy to get some feminine hygiene products that were on sale. As I approached the cash, there was some sort of kerfuffle involving the product the clients before me wanted to purchase – a wrong price, I suspect. I remember this couple specifically because the woman looked like a used-up, down-on-her-luck, aging porn star. This mean -yet accurate- observation will bear significance a bit later as the pivotal factor in helping me to determine what went wrong.

I had been waiting a couple of minutes, when the cashier finally asked them to move aside so that she could serve other clients. I was next. She rang up my Always with wings and rubbing alcohol (which I don’t use to rub down bruises as indicated on the label, but rather to rub down the kitchen counter on account of Mr. Kitty traipsing along it with his potty paws.) I tapped my credit card on the paypass and off I went. Simple and insignificant, until….

Next day, I was going through the bills in my wallet and I saw something odd on my pharmacy receipt: ‘Dulcolax laxative’ @ $14.69. My first thought was that I must’ve picked up someone else’s receipt. Then I actually wondered if I bought laxatives without even knowing it – you know, like sleepwalkers sometimes get in their car and start the engine. Maybe my subconscious is telling me something that my bowels are not. But no. Then I thought that perhaps I bought something and it just scanned in as a different product. But no. Then I had this horrible/sad thought: what if the cashier had an eating disorder and scanned it onto my bill so she wouldn’t be seen buying it for herself. A thief with a conscience, if you will – not wanting to rip off her employer, but willing to let someone else pay for it.

And this is where the porn star was instrumental in helping me to figure out what I think happened: Candy (that’s what I’ll call her) was prepping up (read: colo-rectal cleansing) for her next flick, Butt Busters. Being an older ‘actress’ and not getting as many gigs as she used to, she has to watch her budget. So, when her laxatives rang up at the regular price, Candy asked the cashier to have a clerk verify the price for her. Given that most pharmacy clerks are pimply-faced, horny teenagers who have no concept of time, it was taking too long, so the cashier moved on to the next customer – me. BUT (pun intended) she forgot to clear the previous transaction and rang it up with mine. And, being the exhausted old broad that I am, I didn’t even cop on to the fact that I paid 4 times the amount that I should have for my purchase. Duh.

This morning, I called the pharmacy and recounted the whole story of what happened and that, honestly, the way I cook, it’d be Immodium that I’d need, not Dulcolax. The fella replacing the manager didn’t seem to find that, or the fact that I described one of their clients as a porn star, very amusing. (Maybe it was his mom?) All that effort to explain everything in detail (and in French) for naught – I have to call back tomorrow and speak to the real manager. Apparently, only he can handle this sort of shit. (Again, pun intended.)

Even if nothing can be done to RECTify the situation, at least I’m working on my assertiveness skills. Normally, I’d just beat myself up for being so stupid and not paying attention; abnormally, I’m speaking up for myself, or, at the very least, asking if things can be fixed. And from now on, you can bet that I’ll be paying very careful attention to my receipts at the point of sale.

The only question now is: did Candy get her laxatives in time for her flick, or did her co-star end up with a dirty…?

Well, now you know what kind of blog this is going to be.