Neighborhood Nicknames
When I lived in Washington,D.C., most of the Safeways (achain of grocery stores) were known by certain monikers.
There was the Social Safeway (where you could not go lookingat all frumpy or haggard because you were basically guaranteed to run into someoneyou knew; I even think local legend held that many encounters at the SocialSafeway led to weddings), the Suburban Safeway (the most boring of them all,you never saw anyone other than a minivan-driving mom with her kids shoppinghere) and the Soviet Safeway (where you often had to wait in line for bread ormilk).
Even thought it’s been almost seven years since I lived inD.C., I still find myself assigning names to the places I visit most often.
First, there’s the Wild Wal-Mart. While all Wal-Marts havesomething of a “survival of the fittest” mentality (you don’t know what you’recapable of until Digiorno Supreme pizzas are on super sale), at the WildWal-Mart, all of the rules you thought you understood about human interactiongo out the window.
I’ve seen grown men spit on the floors there, a father andson get into a near fist fight at the cash register and a woman attempting toreturn open peanut butter because once she got home she realized it was 10cents more than she thought she should have paid for it.
Then, there’s the callous CVS. I once called this drugstoreto ask if my doctor had called in my prescription yet. “I haven’t spoken toher,” my pharmacist said. “But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t called. I haven’tanswered the phone in awhile, and I won’t check the messages for another halfhour.”
Awesome. Never mind that it was five minutes to five, and Iwould have to go overnight without meds if I couldn’t verify that myprescription order had come in. It was cool. (Extra care indeed.)
Another time I called and asked if my prescription wasdefinitely ready to pick because I felt awful and didn’t want to be out of thehouse any longer than necessary. “It is ready for pick up Ms. Mills.”
“You’re sure it’s ready?” I said. “Because I’ll just wait anhour or so to leave the house if it isn’t.”
“Nope, it’s ready.”
It wasn’t. Instead of remaining on my couch for the waittime, I spent 20 minutes in a folding chair next to the pharmacy’s privacypartition clutching my stomach in pain. Hence, the callous part of the CallousCVS.
I also have the Incompetent CVS. (Unfortunately, these aremy two closest pharmacies.) At the Incompetent CVS, you always have to wait for15 minutes at the counter while they find the prescription that’s placed in abin ALPHABETICALLY.
God forbid you be in line at the Incompetent CVS because thepharmacists there love to talk. The line can be ten deep, and they’ll find timeto ask Mrs. Wilson about why she prefers the Ensure shakes to V8 or doubleprice check Mr. Smith’s Sensodyne. I’ve been tempted to yell “I have anuncomfortable feminine problem” (true or not) for the sake of embarrassing theminto either moving through the line faster or fast-tracking me to the front.
And I haven’t even gotten to the Classy Krystal’s, the DirtyKrystal’s, Moody Moe’s or the Ghetto Winn-Dixie yet.
I have no idea what’s more disturbing about this: that Iactually took time to name (and catalog) all of the places I run errands, orthat, as a lover of words and writer, these are the best descriptors I couldcome up with.