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I was just cleaning out a drawer from a small table I retrieved from my parents. In it, a deck of old playing cards. I still can't quite look at a deck of cards without a little bit of residual worry. It's a silly remnant left from childhood, the reason I'm not always aware of, but that little bit of worry remains...
Growing up, I was aware of the difference between the basic OTC drugs you could get at the store vs. the prescription drugs you got from the pharmacy. The pharmacy seeming so different than the regular drugstore where you could also get any number of things. I suppose you could get any number of things from the pharmacy, but the place in itself, seemed so serious. The counters and windows were filled with apothecary jars filled with colored liquids that reminded me of the comb sterilizer at the barber shop. I always assumed they were there for show since the real stuff was safely stored behind the pharmacist's counter. Still, their presence seemed imposing and added an additional weight of seriousness and mystery to the place.
I never liked going in there, but occasionally would be dragged along by my mother. I don't recall her getting anything there except for prescriptions... prescriptions and playing cards. I never understood it. I knew prescriptions were serious, but playing cards?? They seemed rather innocuous. Why on earth would you have to get them at the pharmacy? But get them there, she did.
While paying for some Rx I would notice that she would take what looked like playing cards out of her purse and would "pay" for the new deck with those. I knew those cards... they looked like playing cards, but had Reliance Pharmacy printed on them. My mother kept them in one of the kitchen drawers. Every once in awhile I'd take one out to look at and would try to figure out the mystery. They didn't say much and certainly nothing explaining the rules of card purchasing. I just knew that getting playing cards had to take place at the pharmacy, with prescriptions and these other cards being involved. There must be something deep, dark and secretive about it that I wouldn't understand.
I never asked, but I did kind of worry... buying playing cards fell into that childhood worry area along with income taxes, buying a car, and other mysterious things my parents did that I knew had rules, rules that I wondered if I was ever capable of mastering, let alone, remembering. I only hoped I'd figure it out because I liked playing cards and hoped I'd be able to get some of my own one day.
Well, as you've surely surmised by now, the playing cards had nothing to do with prescriptions other than the fact that the pharmacy used them as a sales gimmick. Fill x number of prescriptions, get x number of cards, and eventually you get a deck of real cards. That was it. It was that simple, but I never flashed on it. Green Stamps I could understand... filling up your car enough times and getting a free oil change, I got that, but playing cards and prescriptions?? That had me confused and left me just a little too afraid to ask. I didn't need to heap one more set of adult world rules on top of the ones I was already trying to learn, besides, acquiring playing cards shouldn't have rules. I also felt a little irked by the control of the system...
You'll be happy to know, I've never gone without cards in my life... I don't think I've ever purchased them at a pharmacy either, although... a little bit of that worry, a little bit of that seriousness of obtaining cards, still remains. I can only wonder what little things I am doing during the course of my day that has my lamblets silent with wonder and maybe a little concern...
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