Walgreens, Round 2

Walgreens, you still haven’t gotten your act together.

When our blessed, favorite Target pharmacy was slammed with a corporate policy that no longer accepted our (very good) insurance, I was forced to start shopping around again. Why is it that pharmacies other than Target cannot figure out how to fill liquid medications for children? What is so incredibly hard?

(I will be fair in saying that the pharmacist did get me a bottle of generic chewable ibuprofen and give it to me through the drive-through, which was nice of him. The alternative was my taking in two children in jammies…one of them with pinkeye and a sinus infection.)

At first, I thought: "Walgreens finally figured out the secret!” You got the syringes with the stoppers that go in the top of the bottles! Just like Target!

Oops, but look. Compare size of bottle top, and size of stopper. This is the bottle that the medicine powder comes in—they pour in filtered water and shake it up. And then MOST pharmacies transfer that to a medicine bottle. Walgreens…not so much. So that’s a no-go. However, I had fallen for this little trick before and I knew to check before I left the parking lot. In addition, note the length of the bottle versus the length of the syringe. The liquid stops at about midway up on the label on the bottle. Even when the bottle is new, the syringe will barely reach the liquid.

In addition to the stopper size and syringe length issue, there’s the issue of what the medication is. Augmentin. Augmentin is:

• THICK (therefore if you use a medicine spoon, half the dose clings to the walls)
• BITTER (even when flavored (2.99, thanks…Target does it for free), you’ve got to get it down a kid FAST because it’s nasty, which is another argument against thick medicine in a medicine spoon)
• Penicillin-based (I’m allergic to penicillin and don’t have any business getting it all over my hands.)

So I pulled BACK through the Walgreens drive-through line, totally baffling my children. I asked for either a stopper that fits the bottle, or a bottle that fits the stopper. Nope. Don’t have either.

You don’t carry medication bottles for liquid medicine?

Nope.

Seriously?

Nope.

None at all? Not even two smaller ones or anything?

Nope.

But this is…unusable!

*Baffled look*

So I did what any desperate mom of two children under age 8 who is running on 2 hours of sleep would do. I rolled my eyes, muttered under my breath, and drove to the pharmacy across the street (the one that LOST our prescription last time).

THEY had a bottle. And they gave it to me for free. I thanked them profusely.

So, Walgreens, this is what a medication bottle looks like. This is what you use when you’re not so cheap that you use the stock bottles and give them directly to customers.

And then I got out my funnel and played pharmacy tech.

And look—the stopper fits in an actual bottle!

I can even write my own label!

And draw up a dose without pouring it everywhere, spilling it, having it coat the outside of the syringe, or dropping the syringe in a wide-mouth bottle.

And the three-year-old can do her medicine entirely by herself. And when your kiddo looks THIS pitiful, you want to get that medicine down her ASAP.

That is all.

Vent: Adios, Walgreens

Walgreens, here's why you've lost my business:

• You act like you're doing me a favor to fill my prescriptions.
• When there's some issue with insurance (almost always due to a miscommunication on YOUR end), you don't call. You wait until I schlep one or more children to your store before you inform me that "they said they wouldn't let you fill it again for two more days." You have my phone number. I called you FIVE HOURS ago to refill this, and you never called me to tell me that there was a problem.
• When a frazzled-looking mom with raccoon-rings from old mascara comes in carrying a red-faced overtired baby and an incredibly hyper 4 year old and hands you an Rx for EAR-NUMBING DROPS, you do not consider this urgent. Ditto for anti-nausea medication. To the mom, who has been up with whichever issue all night long, this is an *emergency* prescription. And yes, 45 minutes is unreasonably long to take the box off the shelf, bungle the call to insurance, and wait to ask me a question, only to THEN actually stick the label on the box and then ring it up.
• While I'm having to kill the 45 minutes in your store, there is nothing to do short of take 7 million dollar-store-quality toys or candy of my daughter's reach or to browse the incredibly limited and overpriced grocery selection.
• When I get a liquid mediciation for my little ones, once I get past the top 1/3 of the bottle, how on earth am I supposed to get it into the syringe without pouring it all over myself while bouncing a crying sick baby?

And to Target, here's a list of all the things you do *right*:

• You act grateful for my business. You each give me your personal business card every time and make a point about making sure that I know I can call you with questions.
• You apologize if I have to wait.
• You flavor for free.
• You tell me if it's a high-dosage antibiotic and therefore to watch out for explosive diapers.
• You call me at home the next day to see how she's doing.
• You have the prescription ready when you say it will be, already processed correctly through insurance, and packaged with an infant syringe and your oh-so-cool dispensing tops.
• When a frazzled-looking mom with raccoon-rings from old mascara comes in carrying a red-faced overtired baby and an incredibly hyper 4 year old and hands you an Rx for EAR-NUMBING DROPS, you consider this urgent and ask if 20 minutes is fast enough, or if I need it faster. As a matter of fact, 20 minutes is fine because that gives me time to run over and pick up some soy milk and a few other things that I need that you so conveniently have in your store.
• When I get a liquid mediciation for my little ones, you have that awesome syringe-fitting top with the compatible syringes that I can practically use one-handed. And they're printed in black ink (thank you!) as opposed to the dye-free Tylenol droppers, which have white ink against a white medicine. Heck, you'll even give me more of the tops and syringes for Benadryl, etc.

Walgreens, tonight was the last straw. So long!

Target, if you'll just get White Cloud diapers and a drive-through, I'll never have to shop for anything anywhere else!