Whats the BIG idea abt Allergies?

I really want to know the answer to the question up there...

The thing abt allergies is that one cant tell... and when i say one cant tell, i meant that the pharmacist CANNOT tell you whether YOU are allergic to this particular medicine or not, if u hav nvr taken it b4 in ur entire lifetime. You, however, would have the answer tho.. or at least in the near future. Its not really my fault when I wun be able to tell you if this medicine will close up ur airways and potentially shut u up forever. I dun really hav an allergic test kit that comes with every medicine on the shelves nor a crystal ball that comes with every operating pharmacy... All i hav are my references like MIMS, Mantindale and DIH and I cant seem to find a sentence in red in any of them stating: Caution, Mr Jackass is allergic to this, refrain fr dispensing. All I can tell you is that drug allergies are for ME to KNOW and YOU to FIND OUT.

So shoo.. go and find out. Do u even know how ridiculously stupid u sound when u asked me: Will this medicine cause allergies? Especially when its an antihistamine, a medicine for allergies. (u really got me there) Or when u tell me u r allergic to this becos u get gastric after takin it. Or when u insist that i give u something mild becos u r allergic to strong medicine... duh... At this point of time, i can only tell u that i am allergic to u becos i can almost feel my throat closing up and my brain is going to the state of comatose due to the lack of intelligence contact...

I tink the best answer a pharmacist can get to the question of allergies would be: I know Im allergic to something but I forgot what is that. Well, in that case, I hope the medicine u r about to take can refresh ur memory.

Btw, if u do get an allergy reaction, irregardless of whether if its juz a simple rash that covers u fr head to toe or the worst kind like an anaphylactic shock, sad to inform u that neither the pharmacist nor the doctor will be responsible unless u hav specifically told us that u r allergic to the medicine we gave you b4 hand. Hah, in your FACE!


So rem the next time when a healthcare professional ask u if u r allergic to anything, it means we are interested in knowing if u r allergic to any MEDICINE and we dun give a damn abt ur mother's cat and the best answer to that question if u hav none, would be: Not that I know of.

I rest my case.

What type of customer are YOU?

Basically, there are several types of customers here in my little pharmacy:

• The Proud: think they know everything and when u try to tell them they are wrong, they go huh huh huh really arh???, almost like a little song you sing to the pharmacist. Dun believe me, dun ask me lah..

• The Ignorant: Dunno what they are looking for, dunno which 1 they wan, dunno the name of the med, the only thing they know are details that i dun give a damn. Like color of the tab is white, the cream is in the tube like a toothpaste, all this means shit in the bowl to me... FYI Im going to suggest the Singapore Dental Society to change the package of all toothpaste to pumps b4 pple start brushin their teeth with hydrocortisone..

• The Rusher: Grab the med fr my hand before i can explain the dosage and splint to the cashier... fine with me if u dun wan to hear me out but dun blame me later when u ate the suppository that meant for ur asshole, asshole..

• The Hard of Hearings: This is the second time u explain to them and they still ask you the exact same questions 2 more times.. They are not old and seem normal.... worst of this kind would be the ones who turn the table around and accuse you of confusing them. Apply 4 times a day, best time to do so would be at night = apply only once at night. Pls Im here to teach u how to use this cream, not english comprehension.

• The Illiterate: If u noe that u hav nvr step into a school in ur entire lifetime and u r not planning to do so either, could u bring something along that can help me to identity the medicine u want to buy? and when i instruct u to do so next time after spending 1/2 hr showing u everything, u get pissed at me and start telling me ur life story of how u noe nuts abt A,B,C , like its my fault that u r what u r now.. I think its time that u go to school and learn how to respect others and be polite for a change.

• The Cheapos: They are the siblings of So & So who are friends with pharmacist X and they expect discount in EVERY pharmacy branch. They are demandin and SHAMELESS... Hey, I dun owe u a living, u noe!! U wan to know why u dun get a discount in MY SHOP? Becos u dun deserve it.

• The Big Shots: They expect you to be in for them all the whole time and they are always in a rush... I cant go out for lunch, I cant go to the toilet, I cant take a break.. Even God have a day off and u expect me to be here on Sunday juz to dispense chlorpheniramine to you? If so, u can hav my job.

• The Asker: U ask and u ask, u enquire and u enquire but u never seem to purchase anything. Do U think im here to entertain you? I hav tonnes of mind numbing paper work to do and a few ass to kick, further more, u look like a pig. So get out of here before i slaughter u for lunch.

Well, thats pretty much for now.. So think abt it, which type are you?

Back off in the name of Justice!!

I have not been writing for some time now becos there are so many things I have to do and nothing interesting's worth mentioning. However, something I least expected happened to me and furious pharmacist (my veri good fren) tonight.


We're walking, we're walking, we walking down the street. Juz stoppin in front of the traffic lights in front of one of the many roads in Orchard today, furious commented: "Wah, red light already and still pple are crossing" and at that very minute, a man who was crossing the road, hit his hand on the side mirror of a cab while its turning left into another road. I muz say He was ANGRY... He immediately knocked on the cab's window and opened the door, demanding the reason for knocking him...


Let's call this man : Ah mean. Well, first of all, our dear Ah mean was still crossing the road when the traffic lights are already red. Second of all, the reason why he hit his hand onto the cab's side mirror was becos his arms are swinging like all normal humans do in order to keep our balance while walking. He might be swinging slightly a bit more becos of what his name sounds like... So its not really the cabby's fault becos he swung his own hand into the side mirror. Lastly, Ah mean, like his name suggested, is really mean. He opened the cab's door and demanded the cabby to come out in the middle of the junction. Btw that time, Me and furious has already crossed the road but something stops us from continuing our veri impt journey of stuffing our tummies with sushi.


Maybe its the many memories of yelling unreasonable customers came screaming into our minds at that very minute or maybe for once, we want to stand up and defend someone, irregardless that this is probably none of our damn business..

So, we crossed the busy road yet again and came forward to cabby uncle and told him what we saw. By this time, dear ah mean has already called the police, whom i think he was pretty sure that the cabby is in deep shit til we showed up... So.. he turned his anger on us... 2 girls...


Furious, unlike her nickname, was very calm and tried to talk some sense into Ah mean's very limited brain cells through his thick skull..

"Sir look, its red light when u crossed so its not the cab's fault in the first place.. "
However, oblivious to any form of reasoning, he screamed : "Look, look, EVERYONE is crossing the road now even though its red lights now!!"


"So what if every1 is crossin in red lights? This doesnt mean its right, its still WRONG!!" I screamed at him... (Dunno wat came over me)

Then he started his nonsense abt if he has a camera and he will take shots of the cab and lights and whatever... and make us pay.. well, i didnt really catch that probably of all the fume streaming out of my ears and furious was confused abt the paying part..


and then he start saying that dun let him catch us crossin the road in red lights, dun try to FOOL him... which, i retaliated.. screaming at him that we wun cross the road in red lights (a big fat lie) and we wun try to fool anyone.. only he is fooling himself..
Well, that certainly shut him up..

Seriously speaking, i dun noe where i got all this courage... screaming my head off at a stranger is really not something i tot i would do. I was a timid child while growing up. Talkin to teachers would make me nervous, walking into an empty shop alone is something i wun do unless necessary even til now, let alone standing up for some1 i dunno and screaming reasons at a angry unreasonable man.

But i was mad, really mad and not becos of who or why but becos of what this stands for, what this means to me.


It means standing up for something that i think and knows im right. It means I make a difference in someone's life irregardless of how insignificant it may be. It means that I will be able to sleep peacefully tonight without thinkin what will happen to the cabby uncle if he is wronged by that asshole. It means standing up for justice. And I feel im on the top of the world now, so will my furious fren, who has also endured the many many torturous encounters with difficult, crazy, freakly, unreasonable and the most troublesome customers of all: the impotences.


Well, the little petty misunderstanding ended when the police finally came and took our statements. Despite we over heard that ah mean may press charges, but who cares? We will still say the truth abt what we saw.

Now, the media has always protrayed us pharmacists as goofy, nerdly people who hide inside our cave-like-pharmacies. Or the pathetic murderer who kills in order to keep the one he loved as in some housewifes show. Or in most public's opinion, the paranoidal man/lady in the white coat, wasting ur previous time juz to check the prescription with ur doctor for ur sleeping pills which is written in a different colored ink from the rest of ur other medicines.


Well, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell u this. We are all stepping out to show u there's more than meets the eye for us, THE PHARMACISTS. We are actually saving ur ass and ur doctor's ass when we call to check ur script. We spent way too much time studying abt the use of medicine to even bother abt ur hair color when u asked me which hair dye will give a darker black. We have far more important counselling to do than to explain the crap to u that u cant buy POM without a prescription, irregardless ur dog ate the script or u, ur mother, father or grand parents lost it or u left it in the cab, u broke the med bottle or whatever smart alex excuses u manged to come up with. We deserve a thank you from u doctors whenever we called ur clinic and tells you that u hav left out the strength of the medicine or the duration of the treatment or to clarify the number of repeats which u so conveniently forget to write for ur sexual derived patients . We deserve some appreciation when we called to check whether u mean diltiazem or diazepam when u wrote diltizepam and not "Juz give *******."

So next time, when u are irritated becos we called and interrupted ur little afternoon nap in the clinic or u juz want to vent ur anger on someone juz becos u cant get ur prescribed aphrodisiac, stay clear of the pharmacist's way cos: Oh No no, WE WUN BACK OFF TIL JUSTICE IS SERVED! Are you Clear?

Somethings wrong with this neighbourhood

Usually, they roam in groups after the sun has set. Wearing bright colors on their faces and ultra-mini shirts on their hips, they try to enthuse the old male human race of the earth. They come in various shapes and sizes and fr all over the world; tall, short, fair, tanned, chinese, philipines, thai... U name it, they got it, all for ur pleasure, sir...

So u ask, what izit going to do w me? Oh Pissed one?

Well, normally i dun really have anything against these group of customers.. They bring us business, buying condoms and feminine wash and all time fav Canesten vag tab... til yesterday...

This lady, lets not say the race but definitely she belongs to the occupation i described above. came askin for OC (oral contraceptives). For all of u outside the narrow circle of pharmacy, OC are prescription only. Meaning: bring me a valid prescription fr a registered doc in SINGAPORE, then i will gladly sell the damn thing to u. Throw in a smile even, if u r polite and keep ur mouth shut while im processing ur script.

Anyway, i told her nicely i need a script. Then she asked abt morning after pills which i told her the same thing. Then she asked me what OC i hav in the pharmacy, which is like so many becos of the customer demand here and wats the point if u hav no script. Gave her straight answer: NO!! and then she insisted on seeing the morning after pill.. What to do?? Customers are our first priority, so i showed it to her and like all hookers fr the that part of the world, she knows no english...

I was abit worried that she might juz snatch the thing and ran off but luckily for me she didnt..
Anyway, she start asking me again why i cant sell her that despite i used all the key words in my first explaination: Prescriptions, see doctor, cannot sell, the law.
Next thing she said is the best, "You cannot secretly sell to me? No 1 will know"
All my explainations down the sewage drain... mebe STD can turn grey matter into jelly like the mad cow disease..
"Sori i cant do that becos i will be breaking the law" are words that came out of my mouth
"U tink i would waste my 16 years of education, my professional license and my future juz becos u had unprotected sex? mebe u shd worry abt getting AIDS instead." My thoughts..

In my opinion..

Was doing OT yesterday in another pharmacy in a classy shopping centre and I muz say the crowd there are nice, polite pple... even this annoying lady who gave me her opinion abt medicine.

Well, at first she asked for some flu med which i gladly dispensed and then she requested for Elomet cream. Well.. unfortuately here in Singapore, Elomet cr cant be sold without a prescription. So I politely told her "Sorry, no script, no cream." Offered her hydrocortisone cr which shd do the trick for her condition but oh no, Im too high class to use a steriod so common and mild.

Then she starts giving me her opinion on how she believes that only oral medicine that can kill needs a prescription and yada yada blah blah... She sort of stood there for a minute in silence after her little speech, I guessed she was hoping that i would break the law for her but I juz smiled sweetly at her.. My thoughts: Try harder


By the by, I too hav some opinions abt :

In My Opinion:

1. All idiots shd be let out of their house ONLY after 6.30pm, the time when Im off duty.
2. All medicine should NOT require a script so that dumb pple and smart alex can take whatever they wan ..... and prove themselves wrong.
3. All cheapoes shd carry a tag, identifying themselves in order to prevent any misunderstandings.
4. An extra charge shd be mandatory imposed on pple who ignored me initially when help is being offered and approached me later when Im busy.
5. A large poster shd be placed outside the pharmacy: STUPID QUESTIONS WILL NOT BE ENTERTAINED.

May the Sun be bright and Sunny

May ur skin be old and wrinkly

This is for the stupid woman who called and harassed me abt sunblock and SPF and how many times it needs to be applied and what if its for everyday uses like not directly under the sun. I am already unhappy becos a man came earlier for the third time for this cough med w promethazine. I told me that this is the last time im giving him and he needs to see the doc if its not better. Then he start raving abt its not for him, its for his fren which he recommends this to and how its works for him and yada yada yada... I switch on my IGNORE mode and try to push my " are u a doctor" speech down my throat.

Anyway, this ultraviolet ray-phobic lady called few mins later and starts shooting me dumb questions abt sunblock and SPFs and drives me mad. I lost it so i answered my last question before telling her "that's all" and cut her off. She tried to call back twice but my refusal to pick up the phone made her lodge a complain abt me.

But surprisingly, I feel I won this battle for once and finally its my turn to piss some1 off. I FEEL GOOD, BABY I FEEL SOOOOO GOOD NOW :D

Most hated customer of the day #04

Mebe its the cool air conditioning inside the pharmacy that drove the pack or simply becos this very pharmacy was built on this super-nuclear powered area that handphone signals are so damn good, more than 1/3 of the imbeciles that walk in everyday are holding a handphone to their ears while attempting to talk to me.

Most of the time, im resigned to my fate as an over-educated salegirl with the power to sell poisons so i try my best to help these idiots by selling them more than 2 pkts of chlorpheniramine. I try not to throw a bitch fit most of the time but sometimes, oh GOD help me, a piece of crap like this guy walks in and i have to show him my pissed face..

What happened was that he came in, asking for antihistamine tablets for his kid who cant stop sneezing in the morning. My sympathies to the poor kid and i hope he didnt get stupid genes, beside the sensitive nose genes, from both his parents.

Anyhoo, like all parents, he has absolutely no idea what his kid is taking so i showed him all the non-drowsy antihistamine tablets tt i hav and waited for 5 mins to the info to be transmitted to his tiny brain. Then after yet another 5 mins, he tells me he cant recognise any of them and of course to enjoy the excellent phone signal here, he pull out his mobile and start rattling off to his wife. Its the busiest time of the day, customers are overflowing into the pharmacy and i can see other imbeciles waiting to pissed me off at my counter already and yet this pig-like human being is still going on and on. Finally, he hanged up and told me H***d, which is the company's name.

Of course i know wat he wans from the med's company so i threw it at him. Now the problem is, he is the one who is unsure... so he has to ask me yet again,"this is the same as Clarinase?" which is NOT, so i corrected him: "no, its more like Clarityne"
" Whatever" is the reply i get from him. Im PISSED, PISSED, VERY PISSED!!!