Drugstores

I love them. How can you not? My wife always knows when I've been to the drugstore by the amount of time it takes me to get home from the gym, my mood or the wrappers she sees in the garbage. I always thought that it was the fact that the drugstore is a shop FULL of solutions. I mean - you have a headache? Ibuprofen. Need materials for school? Trapper keepers, pens and stationary are all over the place. Body odor? Deodorant. Dry skin? Lotions abound. On the lam? They basically have an entire aisle dedicated to hair dye kits and another half an aisle for shaving materials! It has always been a top destination from me.

During an innocent trip to peruse and pick up prescription (solution!) - I had a thought that changed my perception of drugstores and disappointed me immensely. Everyone always blames the government and/or "corporatocracy" for not finding a cure for the common cold. The array of products offered by drugstores and the way the stores are merchandised lends credence to this belief and, even more devastating, tells me that drugstores are in on it. I thought for all of these years that drugstores just innocently added products like candy, chips, crackers, gum, and beverages for the simple add-on sales they offered. Then when I was checking out trying to convince myself that this was all a lie from below - I noticed the cigarettes on the other side of the register. Why on earth would drugstores offer cigarettes unless they were TRYING to ensure there would always be a need for the solutions they offered?

Even worse, and I'll leave you with this, the stores are staged in order from the best solutions (pharmacy at the back) to the worst health-inducing problems (cigarettes at the VERY front). It's even a gradual downhill slide in the order of products from the pharmacy to the front counter (OTC remedies to hygiene products to school supplies to toys to gum to candy to cigarettes. I hope I haven't disappointed anyone else, but I'll never view Walgreens with such naive, giddy excitement as I have for the past 32 years.