Screenshot
It was a warm, sunny Sunday morning in the city and I decided to do some neighborhood chores before the temperature rose.
We fill our prescription meds at the Walgreens pharmacy chain where the pharmacists can pull an RX from any Walgreens branch. That’s come in handy when we’ve been away and have forgotten to pack our meds!
But that morning we were in town and had prescriptions waiting at our local eastside Walgreens on First Ave @ 86th St. I planned to walk the few blocks to pick them up, but by 9:30 it was pretty hot out and seeing a crosstown bus waiting at the stop, I hopped on thankful for the air conditioning.
Walgreens was already open, but I knew on Sundays the pharmacy department doesn’t open until 10:00. A few other customers were already waiting and I joined the line as a pharmacy clerk was explaining that Tony, the regular pharmacist, was taking the day off, and they had to wait for a floater pharmacist to open up. But when by 10:20 no one had arrived, I decided rather than waiting any longer I’d go to the Walgreens on Lexington Ave @ 83rd.
Back on the sidewalk I found it had already gotten much warmer, and so I hopped back on the 86th St. crosstown, got off at Lex, and walked down to 83rd.
At the Lexington Ave Walgreens I asked the pharmacist to pull our prescriptions from the First Ave store. She said they normally would, but their computers had just gone down.
So back out on the street I waited at the nearest Lexington Ave bus stop, now intending to take a bus down to 77th and then walk a few blocks east to the Walgreens on 77th @ Second.
My bus app told me the next Lexington Ave bus was due in 5 minutes, but in fact a bus appeared in less than a minute and I happily got on, not bothering to check the bus number. I asked the driver how close to 77th St she stopped, and she said I was actually on a Fifth Ave bus that had been detoured down Lex and she’d soon be turning west, not heading south. She stopped – certainly in violation of some MTA rule – to let me off.
Then, despite the heat, I began to hoof it down Lex when I decided to stop and call my First Ave Walgreens to see if the floating pharmacist had arrived. She had I was told, and eschewing any more buses, and despite the increasingly oppressive heat, I walked back to First and 86th.
I entered the store – for the second time that morning – expecting to be greeted with a welcome blast of refreshing cold air. But then I saw the sign.
”Walgreens shoppers, please excuse the inconvenience as our air conditioning is out of order.”
I guess there are times when you simply have to grin and take the heat.
– Dana Susan Lehrman
Dana Susan LehrmanThis retired librarian loves big city bustle and cozy country weekends, friends and family, good books and theatre, movies and jazz, travel, tennis, Yankee baseball, and writing about life as she sees it on her blog World Thru Brown Eyes!
www.WorldThruBrownEyes.com
