The Devil Has A Rival

Remember how the pharmacy forgot to charge me for a $30 prescription at the end of July? And how I declared that I was not going to inconvenience myself to bring it to their attention, but rather wait for Even Steven to balance things out? Well, last week, the dummy who made the error called me. She seemed a little nervous to be calling me at home to ask for the money she forgot to charge me. She should be nervous. She's the one who always messes up my pharmacy business. I told her that I would take care of it the next time I picked up some prescriptions. She sounded relieved. "I'm just going to put a note in the drawer to remind whoever rings it up." Fine with me. Like they're going to do that right.

On Wednesday, I stopped in to get the #1 son's Nasonex and some thyroid meds. I took the old cash register receipt, still stapled to the three prescription receipts for which I only paid two. I told a different worker than Dummy that I needed to pay for one they forgot to ring up. She got my current order, and saw a note on the computer screen when she rang it up. All the while, she was thanking me for bringing it to their attention that I owed them for a past mistake. Duh. It's not like I am Mother Teresa. I owed it, and always intended to pay it, but only after they figured it out. No need to make me Customer of the Year.

This clerk had to ask somebody in the back to come look at the screen, and show them I was paying the old $30, and ask if this was going to take it off the screen in the future. She had already scanned the old drug receipt that I brought in. The Back Lady told Clerk that this would take care of it. They even cleared out the purchase and pulled it up again, and it was gone.

But you know me. I was skeptical. I kept those old receipts, and the new one as well. You can see where this is heading. To complicate matters, my doctor had sent in a new thyroid prescription for a higher dosage. That was on Tuesday afternoon. Yet the pharmacy had no record of it on Wednesday when I was there. So I took the old prescription, since I'm able to take a pill-and-a-half and get the new dosage that way. And it only costs $4.

When I got home Friday, I called the doctor's office to ask if the new prescription had been sent. They said it had. I double-checked with the pharmacy by phone. No. They didn't have the prescription. I called the doctor back to verify that it had been sent to the right pharmacy. Yes. They were sure. I called the pharmacy again. They hemmed and hawed, and I said I didn't have anyone else to call, that one of them had their facts wrong. I asked the phone lady to check Tuesday and Wednesday records for that prescription, whether it had been called in or sent by computer. Aha! Phone Lady mumbled that something should have been printed out and wasn't. I said that I didn't need those meds right now, as I had just picked up the old prescription and could make do. She got very snotty and said it didn't matter to her whether she ran that prescription now or later. So I told her to run it now. Just because.

I went to pick it up on Saturday, and wouldn't you know it? A different counter gal said that I owed $30 on a past prescription. I told her that I had just paid that on Wednesday, and plopped out my receipts. She called a different back lady, who said that I had indeed paid it, and that it shouldn't have popped up on screen.

Guess who's going to laminate those receipts and haul them in each time.