The Discount Chemist

On the way back from work (mid-afternoon, I'm an early bird) it is always a good time for some shopping at a place that I normally just drive past; for me at least, or for anyone for that matter, I'm sure, who lives in a relatively quiet suburb.

Now, you can define the quiet suburbs as the ones for the well-to-do and frown at them, as I do at times, shamefully though, knowing I shouldn't do this, it could come across as mean; while I'm always on the lookout for the disadvantages of being all too well-to-do, and doing all those things that are certain to trigger a heart attack by age 55.

Or it's simply a suburb where nothing much happens. And that's pretty much the kind of suburb I like.

Yet it turned out it wasn't my day. I may not want much, but the things I do want or need, I'd like to buy at a reasonable price or even at a discount. But already in the supermarket I failed to see when my things went through the checkout that the soymilk (take that as a lifestyle hint, if you like) was actually advertised at 40 cents off per litre.

Unfortunately, the branch's database hadn't been adapted and the cartons were scanned in at the regular price, which I spotted only when I casually looked at the docket when I was already back home. Too late to complain, too wasteful to go back for eighty cents taken that driving there and back would cost more in fuel, and tomorrow was another day, and I wouldn't want to appear niggling.

(Microsoft Media)

Still blissfully unaware of the 80 cents and the distant possibility of the supermarket's still having its policy of giving customers things for free that were billed incorrectly, I wandered nonchalantly into the nearest Discount Chemist store to buy two things that I would normally have bought at the chemist's much closer to where I live. But the big word "Discount" in large vivid letters was so convincing.

For my eye drops - they are not a luxury item for someone whose eyes are affected by a pollen allergy, and I don't consider myself to be a mere pen-pusher, make that keyboard-puncher in this day and age, for all the things I have to do but cannot convincingly do with a keyboard - I had brought with me the flap cut off the previous carton housing a mere 5-millilitre bottle.

Oh yes, the chemist chirped, this is always the easiest way to get exactly what you want. And I was thinking a simple flap can also spare you a lengthy explanation and having to grope for the proper pronunciation of an artificial word such as the ones frequently used for eye drops and most other drops, pills and tablets.

Happy about the quick service and the friendly smile I then asked for, well, what term other than "energy tablets" might there be? Please don't get this wrong. This is merely about counter-acting a low blood-sugar level that can make you feel dizzy, something that can easily turn out to be rather inconvenient, in particular when you are driving. What other than a "tablet containing glucose, which is a readily absorbed source of carbohydrate, providing instant energy" might you possibly have expected?

Anyway, could anything be simpler than buying two simple items at a chemist's? Yes, you might say, buying just one item, or trying to find it in the supermarket in the health-food aisle. In the end, I thought I might actually have tried this, or simply gone to the chemist near where I live since the vividly coloured discount chemist actually turned out to be anything but discount when I looked at the docket... back home. Four dollars more than my regular chemist would have charged for the droplets.

I decided to be less trusting in future, and instead study the docket right away; and furthermore that I'd be the one who was going to discount that chemist henceforth, and that they in return could jolly well count me out.