I hate Duane Reade

I frequent Duane Reade often, as it's only three blocks away and is the closest place to buy random stuff. The grocery store is way farther away, the deli costs twice as much.

Duane Reade knows this.

And that is why they sit back and allow the lines to grow to rock concert length before calling up the second cashier. This is why there is a lot of missing stock -- you will never, ever, find black tights here -- ever. And this is why the pharmacy is the way it is.

They know you'll take what you can get, when everything else is far away.

And now for the pharmacy. The pharmacy at Duane Reade is like that crazy off-balanced co-worker who a therapist would tell you should be accepted "as they are" because they are unlikely to ever change, despite the mass destruction their behavior causes.

What pisses me off the most is, watching old, barely able to stand men and women wait for an hour to get a prescription that costs double or triple what they can afford -- and what the medicine is actually worth. And to watch people who are clearly sick, not feeling well, and possibly about to collapse as they struggle to stand for this long amount of time.

Get it together DR. That's just not cool.

As someone young and healthy, who simply gets pissed off having to wait that long, I can only imagine how much that sucks for people who are very old, sick, and have fevers or other problems they desperately need medicine for.

For two days in a row I tried to drop off a prescription. Line of ten people. Line does not move. Leave. Return at time less likely to have a line -- still a line of 10 people that does not move.

So I suck it up and in my 30, 40, 45 minutes of waiting, I have much time to contemplate the failures of Duane Reade, the failures of our health care system and our society as things stand at this moment.

First it's a 20s-something black kid waiting for his prescription, and there is of course something wrong with it. Many people in the back need to be consulted. Things need to be slowly looked up on the computer, pill bottles need to be slowly examined and more quiet, slow discussions ensue. He is told to wait longer -- which is their answer for all problems. When he finally gets to pay, it's $100. "$100!!?" he says. "Yes. $100." He does have insurance. They don't know why it's $100. He reluctantly pays.

Is it a mistake with Duane Reade (DR as I will refer to it from now on), or with the doctor who prescribed it? Or with the insurance company? In any event, $100 is just too much.

Next, an older white woman whose doctor did not call in the prescription. She looks like she's about to cry.

Now a very old hispanic man, hunched over, maybe 80-years-old. Something is also "wrong" with his prescription. Then he has to pay much more than he expected. I don't speak Spanish, but something about it being Medicare instead of Medicade. Oh well then, that explains making him pay a huge chunk. No problem with that.

Every single person has something wrong with their prescription, it isn't in the system right, etc. It seems every other person also has to pay some huge amount.

I'm starting to wonder if the hanging "finished" prescriptions behind them are just for show, like those empty Christmas presents in mall store displays.

This is a pharmacy. I'm sure they have some concept for how this is suppose to work -- don't they have some system for processing these prescriptions? Every new customer is greeted with a feeling that they've never done this before.

What is the main pharmacist guy doing? Everyone else seems to be rearranging empty baskets or staring at a computer screen but not actually doing anything.

The guy stocking the shelves next to the pharmacy is making sort of a disaster out of it, with tags and random products everywhere. Empty spaces where stock hasn't been re-ordered. I wonder if this is how the medicine is kept behind the pharmacy wall, and possibly why it seems every prescription is lost.

It just makes me sad to see not only sick people, but old frail people, all hunched over and breathing their last year of breath, spending those last few minutes they have before they are bed ridden, waiting in line at DR. It shouldn't take more than 2 to 5 minutes at the DR pharmacy. Not an hour. That's an hour of their life they are never getting back, and not all of them have that much life left.

Thanks a lot Duane Reade.

Dreads -- I don't have them.

so I ask the salon if the stylist can cut wavy/curly hair. They say "do you have dreads? No? Well then it should be OK." Note to self: never go to this salon if I get dreads. 

But really, how is wavy hair and dreads the same thing? 

I could be wrong, but if you have dreads, I don't think you really need a trim. Are you really worried about split ends at that point??