Epic battle of inconvenience stores: CVS and Walgreens
Background: I spend a lot of my day trying to figure out what buying patterns lead to doucheyness in people. For instance: white wine, Lexuses, and Design Within Reach. I, of course, try to avoid doucheyness at all costs, which makes me a giant fucking douche in the first place, but that's water under the bridge.
My story begins, like all stories, in the past. I was a Walgreens boy. I was there on Biscayne and ~30th all the time, day and night, avoiding puddles of bum vomit sizzling like acid in the parking lot and the zombies they employ as workers. When Coco ran away, the prosaic columns were festooned with flyers. You couldn't tear me away from the place, especially that one aisle that seems to contain almost everything in the store such as Jesus candles, dog treats, bathroom organizers and flashlight batteries (if you go there frequently, you know the one).
Read on, it almost gets exciting on the next page!
However, in the past few days I've just given up. It's too painful to shop at that Walgreens. 37.6% of my trips involve me enduring one hardship or another; it's very Hialeah in that respect. If it isn't the homeless guy grabbing my balls for a quarter, it's the crazy liberal woman buying 257 cans of cat food at 4am. If she's busy being my mom (sorry!), it's the gaggle of ten Puerto Rican hookers with really angular faces, and you know what they say about that.
I was hesitant to take my business to CVS. I admit it: I'm nervous about the carpet situation. Just what are you hiding? Why do you have to do that? No one else does that. The CVS on Biscayne and ~50th is open 24 hours per day now, and at any interesting time it's quieter than a library in there.
As I walk in I feel like I'm in a movie. It's the movie version of my life, but everything is just a wee bit different: everything is dry roasted or lightly salted or "Asian inspired." I'm in fuckin' bizarro Walgreens here and no one gets it but me. Something is amiss, and I have trouble even putting my finger on it.
I used to be all about wet roasting -- sloppy roasting even -- the kind you can only do on the banks of the Mississippi, water turned coffee colored from all the pollutants that they add to keep the cost down. I was all about heavily salted, and cured for the winter, cured for a few winters ago. In the parking lot, I used to avoid knife fights and lost tourists. Now I am just alone with my thoughts, overachieving pistachio nuts, and a great selection of fruit juices.
Time passes. Next thing you know I'm knee deep in discount Easter candy and I've got a little red CVS card hole-punched onto my key ring, hording ten foot long coupon receipts.
And right before the credits of that movie roll, the camera cuts to me, the protagonist: I'm reading a copy of the Robb Report, and I've become the world's biggest douche.
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Thomas Lackner lives in filth.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131591
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/newsroom/press-releases/cvs-bc-11191.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-11-08-druggists-pill_x.htm
Walgreens has no such policy.