A senior citizen's terrible ordeal at Mercury Drug

When my frail and lovely lady, Carmen, reached the plateau called senior citizen, she appeared bubbly with pride and enthusiasm. I could sense then that she was proud to have contributed a little something of herself to our city. Her stint as a city councilor was a brief one term but her friends could vouch that she poured an unenviable amount of selflessness and dedication to her work. She was, on becoming a senior citizen, understandably looking forward to being a part of a privileged class of some kind.

Every now and then, I hear a general gripe from senior citizens. Their common complaint is that over zealous employees of some business establishments treat their old customers with unreasonable meticulousness. Then they conclude, rather unfairly arbitrarily, that the objective of this kind of attention to details is to drive them away and thus avoid giving the legally mandated benefit of a sales discount.

Carmen’s experience, the other day, with the Mercury Drug, seemed to give substance to what I previously took as a scuttlebutt or worse, a brickbat. Because I was with her, I could feel her deep resentment with how she was treated by that pharmaceutical company. It would not be inappropriate for me to describe her terrible ordeal as traumatic. Only her profound sense of equanimity prevented her from breaking down.

What happened? The other week, she complained of some abnormal pains on the side of her body. We were all concerned because she has such an unbelievably high tolerance for pain that we could not hear her complain the way she did. We engaged a very competent doctor whose name I don’t have the permission to print here. His thorough medical checkup revealed that my lady had an atypical virus curable by oral medication. We had no problem buying the initial dosage of medicine and with senior citizens 20% discount to boot! On Carmen’s next visit to the doctor, the latter saw tremendous progress and he prescribed more capsules. We purchased them at Mercury Drug without hassle.

To complete the dosage, we went back to Mercury Drug the other day. When we presented the prescription, the very same one we used only three days earlier, the sales girl named Ms. Marian Pepito, would not sell to us the medicine because she found out that the prescription did not carry the generic name of the medicine. She pointed out that for us to enjoy the 20% senior citizens’ discount, the prescription should have that entry. That I presented to her the Mercury Drug receipt of our Saturday purchase did not help. She was obstinate. Marian would not even explain why we were able or allowed to buy the same medicine, using the same prescription only three days ago from her very same store.

I could recall the general gripe of senior citizens. It rang loud in my ears. To test its validity, we asked the salegirl if we could buy the medicine using the same prescription if we were not to avail of the senior citizens’ privilege. Lo and behold, she took our payment, deducted NO discount and gave us the capsules.

Having validated the scuttlebutt, I turned around. Within two minutes from the time I moved away from the counter, I came back and offered to return the goods. This time, Mercury Drug, thru supervisor Ms. Aleta Dy, would not accept the return because to her the sale was completed! “But, did not the fact that the doctor’s prescription did not reflect the generic name and therefore you should not sell the medicine in the first place?” I asked. Ms. Dy’s answer incensed me. As long as we would ask for no discount, the prescription was okay. They would not insist on the generic name being written on it.

I am sure anger was registered on my face, my efforts to control my indignation notwithstanding. As if to slap us with added insult, Ms. Dy had my lady sign some papers to complete the return. Believe me, I have seen no worse way of treating senior citizens than what Mercury Drug did such that I swore never to come back to it even if I am in articulo mortis!

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