Phunky Phragrance

One morning working as a student, I was given the task of filling Webster-paks (Blister packs) for community clients. That involves organising all their medication into a single blister for each dosing time of the day, breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedtime.

While fulfilling this task, I was exempt from any contact with customers. I was working out in the back staffroom but could still hear transactions as they happened. Being a fairly busy time of the morning, I always seemed to be able to hear at least one customer jabbering on about their problems.

Filling Webster-paks is a really boring, mundane job, so I was working quickly to finish and was sweating a little. Yes, I would prefer to serve customers than to organise Webster-paks!

After a while, I could smell the sharp odour of a sweaty person. I was sure it was me, I was working so hard! I sniffed my armpits to see if the smell got any worse - not really. I was still thinking I was the culprit, I had to be sure!

I made the excuse to grab a few more medications off the dispensary shelves for a client. I walked out of the staffroom, which was behind the dispensary and the smell immediately consumed my olfactories! (The sensory nerves for smell). I could see a few staff talking to a few customers. As I walked closer to the counter, next to the dispensary, the smell got worse, and it became clear who the culprit was.

An obese lady, with ratty hair, a long tatty dress, sweating profusely from the forehead, complete with a red, 'I've just done too much exercise,' look on her face, speaking to the pharmacist about her scripts. Yep, it was definitely her! I scurried back to the staff room, holding my breath - the smell wasn't so bad in there.

Then I came to a realisation, the obese lady was at least five metres from the door of the staffroom! And it was tucked in behind the dispensary with only one entrance! That's a pungent stench! She probably only walked from her car to the front counter to cause that much odour! Well, probably not, it wasn't exactly a cold day, and she probably did a heap of exercise before she came to the pharmacy. Well, probably not very physical exercise.

I listened for when the obese lady left then went back out to discuss her B.O with the pharmacist, of whom didn't flinch the whole time she was talking to the obese lady!

"She comes in all the time for her scripts," the pharmacist replied to my inquisition. "She always smells that bad. I'm getting used to it."

Meanwhile, one of the pharmacy assistants had grabbed a perfume tester from the perfume cabinet and sprayed it all around.

Eww, vomit!!

Morning Aphter Phone Number

Late one afternoon, close to the end of my shift as a student, a young lady, maybe mid to late 20's, came in with a prescription for the morning after pill, Postinor-2. This is also known as emergency contraception (EC) with the active ingredient Levonorgestrel.

The pharmacist dispensed the prescription, and being in a learning pharmacy, handed it to me to counsel the young lady (Or maybe the pharmacist was just too lazy to do it herself?).

The young lady was fairly overweight and very talkative. In fact, I had met her on two previous occasions, one where I assisted her with an ovulation thermometer, then again in Woolworths when the pharmacy boss sent me to get her Cadbury crunch chocolate due to the boss being pregnant and having the munchies. On this occasion in Woolies, the young lady recognised me and complained about how her ovulation thermometer didn't work and would return it, but was generally happy about the pharmacy's customer service.

Anyway, back in the pharmacy I started counselling the young, overweight, talkative lady who didn't seem that interested in the information I had to offer. Probably because she said she had used it before and for some reason was more fascinated in my history as a pharmacy student, asking me numerous questions, then getting a little bit too personal and friendly for my liking by asking if I lived nearby.

I may have panicked a little as the thought came into my head she may be trying to hit on me! Then another thought, "You're (possibly) trying to hit on me when you obviously have had sex with another guy within the last three days?! And you aren't attractive!! At all!!!" (To me anyway, I've seen on documentaries many men go for that sort of thing, and I was young and superficial).

I quickly tried to finish the sale, in doing so realised it was the end of my shift, which motivated me even more to get this lady out of the shop - I had finished all the necessary counselling. The young, overweight, talkative, possibly promiscuous lady finally left then I quickly grabbed my things and took off as soon as I was able, just in case she thought she needed to come back.

And I made it out, unscathed. Phew!

The next day I arrived at the pharmacy rather relaxed, no thought of the previous days events, ready to tackle any challenges ahead. The pharmacist, same pharmacist from the previous day then said to me, "Your friend came back into the pharmacy last night after you left and asked me to pass this onto you."

"What friend?" I replied.

"Oh, that girl you sold the morning after pill to yesterday," the pharmacist handed me a slip of paper.

"Oh, great," I said, "I bet it's her phone number."

Sure enough it was.

"Oops," I said sarcastically as I dropped the paper in the rubbish, "It fell in the bin!"

"I thought you might do that," The pharmacist mentioned.

"She tried to pick me up while getting the morning after pill! Don't you think that's a little, well, slutty?" I suggested, defending my actions.

"Yeah, I guess that's fair enough."

Fair enough indeed...