98 S. Duncan

Setting: Dank, acrid, below ground-level apartment - the air is thick and smells like a combination of sweat, rust, and fish shit.

Upon handing a young lady her prescription, she says to me:

Thank you! You are so nice!

And after the door is closed, I overhear her saying to someone else in the apartment:

Yay! I'm not going to die of hypothyroids anymore!

I bet that is pretty exciting.

Dancing and Cigarettes

On the 12th, Crazy Tim (majored in physics at the UofA, served in Vietnam, helicopter shot down, went crazy, attempted suicide by jumping off 7th story of apartment complex, survived, still crazy) came up to me at work, said the following, and promptly left:

I could've been a dancer, but I started smoking cigarettes. I still think cigarettes are better than marijuana though. Bad things can happen to a guy who lays around on marijuana watching soap operas.

Social Workers are so silly.

At the North Hills Living Center, which is a retirement/rehabilitation home for the elderly and sick, the following are the names of the building's living areas:

1. Honeysuckle Lane
2. Razorback Lane
3. Rehab Lane
4. Whispering Willows

Which one doesn't fit?

Dear, friend

Today I delivered to a young family with two kids, probably between the ages of 4 and 7. As I was walking up the sidewalk leading to their front door, I noticed that on the concrete, scrawled with pink chalk in a child's hand, was the following:

Dear, friend most dearest of all. I GIVE UP!

Delivering Gen Rx

I fell out of blogging for quite a while, but I have an idea.

I work for a local drug store here in Fayetteville delivering medication (and the occasional order of ten Klondike bars for Mrs. C and the four liters of Mountain Dew for Mr. H) to the poor, the sick, the elderly, and the exceedingly rich. Needless to say, I get let in on a diverse cross-section of Fayetteville - I go from one-room, roach infested "apartments" to the underfunded City Hospital to the mansion of, ironically enough, the CEO of the largest nursing care supply company in the country.

It's a rich job in the way of experience, to say the least.

So I'll start posting little bits of my day here on blogspot, but I'm not going to say very much, because these experiences tend to happen in the span of a door opening, an exchanging of money for meds, and the subsequent close of the door.

---------

[At City Hospital, 2-2-08, 10AM]

Old Woman in wheelchair: Hello [smiles].
Me, in passing: How ya' doin'?
Old Woman: Well, I guess I'm living [smiles].

Dwayne

I doubt anyone still reads this, but if they do, here's something.

I work at Collier Drug Stores at the Dickson St. location as a delivery guy and just about everyday this guy named Dwayne comes in to visit. He's schizophrenic, really sweet, and he's always dipping - he must be in his 30s. The other day he came in and Jake and I started talking with him as usual, which tends to be pretty scattered and strange, but this time he said something really touching, which I promptly wrote down:

When I hear that song Love by John Lennon I think of flowers at weddings. I think of my Grandpa. We put flowers on his grave on memorial day. Me and my family put flowers on his grave. He hated flowers though. Loved beer. Yeah I cry sometimes when I hear that song.

Happy Mother's Day!