From Drugstore Gloom To a Happier Place

It was a dark and stormy night...

...inside my head at the CVS pharmacy in Granby, Mass. I needed my prescription strength fluoride toothpaste. The pharmacist wouldn’t give it to me. I knew it was behind the counter. The pharmacist said the prescription was old. The dentist had not responded to requests for renewal.

If I were a cartoon character, smoke would be coming out of my ears. Perhaps my arm would turn into a long mechanical one that would snake past the bad man standing between my toothpaste and me. The arm would snake around the corner, grab the toothpaste, and drop it into my hands. It was just frickin' toothpaste!

Alas, no dice.

Tooth damage from chemotherapy

Chemotherapy wrecked my teeth. It caused dry mouth, which led to unfixable decay and, ultimately, the loss of 13 teeth over time. I need to do everything I can to preserve the teeth I have. That’s where the toothpaste comes in.

Sometimes I get it in mint, but I needed the fruit flavor. That’s because graft vs. host disease in the mouth had led to a painful ulcer on the inside of my cheek. Even just a pea-sized drop of the mint-flavored toothpaste made me wince in pain.

Pre-pandemic, I got my prescriptions at my local supermarket, where the pharmacists are not so rigid. They would advance me a couple of pills if I needed them to get through a long weekend. I switched to CVS during Covid when people were afraid to go in stores. I could drive through at CVS. I could NOT get an advance of a pill or a tube of toothpaste when the going got tough.

Unsettled by an unsympathetic pharmacist

It wasn’t just about the toothpaste. It’s never just one thing. It was all the other times I had a problem at the pharmacy. Most recently, it was getting the oxycodone I needed for severe pain. After blood cancer, I started getting upset about seemingly silly things when the underlying cause was anything but silly.

I wanted to give the pharmacist a piece of my mind. But I couldn’t think of anything to say. I walked towards a chair where I would wait while the pharmacist tried the dentist again.

Distracted for a bit

Before I sat down, a young woman came up beside me and asked, “Are you on line?”

Those words were music to my ears.

What, you say?

The words “on line” were my chicken soup for the soul. I calmed down. My mom worked full time as a jewelry designer and jewelry store owner in New York. She didn’t make chicken soup. But she did wait on line. All of us New Yorkers did.

I looked up at the young woman, who was probably a college student, and asked, “Are you from New York?” She grinned. I was close. She lived in New Jersey.

“On line,” it seems, has legs. Why do New Yorkers and neighbors say it? Someone in a reddit thread had a good answer: “Well, line is a 2-dimensional geometric object. You cannot be in a line. That's physically impossible. You can only be standing on a line. So that probably means, New Yorkers know their geometry.”

Recovering by making a connection on line

In any case, I had made a connection that distracted me from my lack-of-toothpaste rage. We chatted about waiting “on” lines. I asked if she had done one of my favorite things: sitting on line in Central Park for hours while waiting for free tickets to that night’s performance of Shakespeare in the Park.

It’s a tradition that my daughter and I love. We usually get there around 8 a.m., which means waiting four (quick) hours before the noon handout of the free tickets for that night’s show. The people around you are your best friend for the morning. New Yorkers and their dogs parade past. If you order from a nearby deli, all you have to say, for location, is “the Shakespeare line,” and the delivery guy will find you on his bike.

The student said she had done it with her parents. A friend from the West Coast was with her.

“It’s so fun,” she said. “We have to do it.” The friend was intrigued. She lit up at the description. We were in Central Park, not in CVS. I was glad I had stayed open enough to start the conversation. It’s funny how sometimes a little thing can let the sun shine in.

Calm leads to a brilliant work-around

By the way, I had the brilliant idea of going to the baby aisle for non-minty flouride toothpaste. I hit the jackpot. So many choices! I got one made by Colgate called "magical mermaid." The flavor is "orange dreamsicle." It didn't have as much flouride as the prescription, but at least I would be able to brush my teeth while I waited for them to figure it out.