HUH?

Target pharmacy has a practice of placing rubber rings around the neck of the plastic prescription bottle. Theoretically, each family member gets his/her own ring in order to avoid prescription mix-ups. A couple months ago, I requested that no ring be placed on my prescriptions as I live alone and the rubber ring is not recyclable.The clerk made a note of it, and I've had no rings to remove and cut in half so that no bird ends up with a non-expanding ring around its neck.

This morning when I picked up a called-in prescription, the clerk told me ‘it is Target’s policy to place a rubber ring on each bottle'. As she started placing the purple ring on the bottle I told her to stop, as I was present and I had much earlier requested no ring since I live alone, hence no fear of mix-up. Again, ‘It’s Target’s policy. Again, I live alone, so there is no fear of a prescription mix-up. Her answer: ‘I can change the color to pink.’ I said the color doesn’t matter, the ring in not recyclable and it's unnecessary. Reply: ‘If it’s a problem to get the ring off the bottle, we can do it here.’ No, removing the ring is not problem; if you're going to remove it for me, why put it on in the first place?

It ended when I held out my hand for the ring, received it, and gave it back, saying you gave it to me and I’m returning it. She said she’d set her note aside and talk with the pharmacist. Arrrrrggggggg Let’s don’t and say we did.

It reminded me of the time, a few years ago when I was making a purchase at the mall-side checkout at Har-Mar’s Barnes and Noble Booksellers.There is a set of posts and cloth ‘rails’ to guide the crowds in a zig zag maze to the register/clerk. On this day, I was the only one in sight, besides the clerk. I went straight to the register instead of through the little maze. The clerk (very seriously) asked me to go through the maze. I said no, that’s ok; that’s for when there are several people. She was insistent on it and I again refused. While she was ringing up my purchase, another customer approached the register. I called it to the clerk’s attention with ‘Ah, now we have a crowd.’ She didn’t seem too happy with me.