Shopping in Hell...or possibly Nazi Germany

Last week I ran a fever that ranged from 99.1-100.6 for approximately five days. My other symptoms were headache, muscle aches, fatigue, irritability (sorry David!), itchy eyes, and simultaneously having a runny and stuffy nose. My friend Lynnea diagnosed me with hay fever. (And I totally trust her because she's a Medical Professional...)

Lynnea also suffers from the horrors of hay fever and so she prescribed Benadryl or Sudafed or some similar drug. I don't regularly suffer from allergies and I rarely get colds so it's probably been at least five years since I've had to actually buy any sort of cold/allergy medication. When I lived in Oklahoma I remember that someone once complained about the process they had to go through in order to purchase such medication and JasonArcbat once made a comment about these "cards" you have to use to buy those medications now, but I had no idea what I was in for.

I headed to my usual CVS with my "Buy $20 worth of stuff save $4" coupon and immediately headed to the back of the store to start my shopping at the pharmacy. The checkout lanes are at the front of the store so I figured I'd start at the back and work my way up. I went to the lane with the giant ALLERGY sign above it and began perusing the shelves for some appropriate form of medication. All I could find was children's allergy medicine. I wasn't opposed to buying that because I figured I could just take a double dose if I needed to. As I began trying to decide what type of children's medication would be best for me I came across a giant display of cards. They looked a lot like coupons but once I saw them I realized what they were.

The cards were pretty neat in that they gave all the pertinent drug information plus had the price right on them. I picked up the card for Benadryl Allergy that met my requirements and walked to the end of the pharmacy desk line...the end of a very looooong line.

I stood in that line growing increasingly more irritated, first and foremost because I had a fever and felt awful but also because the pharmacists seemed incompetent. I was probably in that line for at least 10 minutes before getting to the front and when I finally did get to the front, I handed Incompetent Pharmacist my Benadryl card and he motioned for me to step aside. I did and he proceeded to help the next customer!

Incompetent Pharmacist finally made an announcement on the loudspeaker asking for a member of management to please come to the pharmacy. Five to seven minutes later, Management Man finally got there. He looked at the Benadryl card I had given Incompetent Pharmacist and asked me for my drivers license. I, of course, said, "What for?" He responded with, "Federal regulations." To which I replied, "Are you kidding me? I have freaking HAY FEVER, I'm not going to sell Benadryl to kids on a playground!"

Nevertheless, I handed over my drivers license. Management Man informed me that he couldn't sell me the Benadryl because my license wasn't from Texas. I informed him that my home state of residence is Oklahoma but I'm in Texas to go to college and there is NO WAY I'm going all the way back to Oklahoma just to get some Benadryl! He told me he would sell it to me if I could provide him with proof of a local address and phone number, even though he wasn't supposed to. Of course, I didn't have any "proof" of my local address with me but did I really look like the kind of person who would be lying about something this ridiculous??

Maybe it was the crazy look in my eye or something, but Management Man proceeded to pull out this huge log book and began writing down all the information from my license plus my local information that he had no proof for and just had to take my word on. I might have given him the Look of Death as I was giving him my local information because for a moment he totally had the fear. After about five minutes of him writing down my favorite color and what underwear I like to wear, he slid the book across the counter so I could sign it. I HAD TO SIGN A LOG BOOK IN ORDER TO BUY BENADRYL!

At this point, he began ringing up my newly acquired little piece of LOSS OF LIBERTY when I had to inform him that I wasn't paying for it back there because I had other purchases to make in order to use my coupon and there was no way I was going to go pick up those things and then come stand in that stupid line again. He told me that it was the law and I didn't have a choice and so I said, "Fine then. This is so ridiculous and intrusive that honestly, I don't have any more time to give to this OR to you so I'll just go somewhere else and give them my SIX DOLLARS for HAY FEVER medication and maybe it won't be SUCH A HASSLE!" At which point I turned around and began to stomp off. (And you KNOW I would've angrily flipped my hair if I had any to flip!)

Management Man called after me, "Ma'am? Ma'am? Here, you can take it to the front. They'll take your coupon there." To which I replied somewhat testily, "See? That wasn't so hard now was it??"

First of all, WHAT THE HELL?? Does America really think that most of its citizens are so drug crazed that we're ALL going to go to CVS to get ingredients to make our meth? Give me a break. It's utter bullshit that I had to stand in line and then deal with Incompetent Pharmacist and Management Man for approximately 20 minutes in order to buy Benadryl! Trust me, if somebody feels bad enough to go through all that crap just to buy the drug, chances are good that you don't want to mess with them!!

If the federal government really thinks taking these types of steps are going to curb the production of meth, they are more retarded than we give them credit for. By the time I left that store I had already figured out several methods around their stupid regulations that any person wanting to use those ingredients for meth could easily adhere to.

I'm sick and tired of having a few scumbag people decide for me what I can and cannot do. Just because idiots use Benadryal or whatever to make their stupid drugs doesn't mean that every other non-drug producing person in America has to suffer. I should not have to provide my drivers license or any other form of ID to purchase allergy medication! Allergy medication isn't illegal and MY GOD if they want to make it illegal, just do it! I shouldn't be made to feel like some sort of criminal in order to buy something to relieve hay fever symptoms! Our liberties are being chipped away one by one and I wonder, at what point will we have had enough? What will it take for us to get up off of our lazy asses and actually let the federal government know that we're not taking anymore of this?