Midnight Rendezvous…

Dad called me last night.  It was midnight.  I had been asleep for hours.  Maggie sighed loudly in the bed as I got up to answer the phone.

“Will you come and help me with this new computer system?” he asked. “I am lost on how to use it and I have to train all my employees and pharmacists on how to use it tomorrow.  I fear we will never get the store up and running tomorrow.”

I got up and dressed.  Brushed my hair and headed out the door to the other town where my father’s pharmacy resides.  It was a nice cool night as I drove.  My windows were down as I smoked one cigarette after another.  A full moon hung in the sky.  I headed down to the Valley thoroughly enjoying the drive and the opportunity to help my father.  I seem to have this intuitive second sense when it comes to computers.  Dad often calls me when he has problems instead of the tech support he so dearly pays for.

Dad had a wonderful new system installed.  I was shocked he would go to such expense.  He went all out.

“How much did all this cost?” I asked. 

“You don’t want to know,” he said. “I had to take a small business loan out through the bank, but it badly needed done.”

“Let’s do a trial run and pretend I am here to get my injection of Risperdal,” I told him.

We walked through the process of filling the prescription.  It printed out the material for the injection box and a barcode.  We took the barcode to a new register and scanned it in.  I showed dad how to decline payment on the touch screen as I couldn’t pay.  Then I had to sign a little pad with a stylus saying I received the prescription and read all the health and legal warnings involved.  It really was neat this new system dad had installed.  It was going to make running the drug store much easier.  All the while, dad still watched me warily around all those drugs to make sure I didn’t take any and get high.  I smiled at one point when I said I was going to use the bathroom in the backroom and he followed me through the area where they keep all the drugs.

Dad called me this morning telling me things were running smoothly. “The Girls” as he calls them had taken to the new system like ducks to water.

“We’ve had the crazies in here today though,” he told me. “Everybody wants their pain medications and we had a few argue with us that we shorted them some.  It certainly is a full moon.”

I smiled and laughed – glad things were okay and normal for what normal is for the drug store.  You just don’t know the sense of satisfaction I get out of being able to help my father.  Usually, it is the other way around.