August 13 – “Customer loyalty”

Here's one for the books.  I ran out of one of my prescriptions the other day.  It was a pretty significant one, too – the anti-inflammatory for the rheumatoid arthritis.  I called in the refill to Randall's at the same time as another one.  And I expected to have some trouble with the other one because it had that dreaded "No refills" notification on the bottle.  That meant they would have to call the doctor's office for approval before they could refill it.    When I arrived for the pickup only one was ready – the one they had to call in to the doctor about.  Of course I did get the speech about having to go back to the doctor's office for a blood test before they will refill it again.  But the anti-inflammatory was not there.  They checked all the bins, and finally the pharmacist who took the order remembered that they were "almost out" of that particular one.  That was the day she shook the bottle and knew by instinct that there were only about 20 pills left.  She did give me a few to hold me until they could order some more.   When I went back in to pick up the newly ordered batch, once again they couldn't find it.  They even went through the newly arrived shipment case by case.  Nothing.  One of them decided to check the shipping manifest, and to his horror discovered that not only was my prescription not there, but neither was their complete order of a huge bottle of the stuff.  OK.  Thankfully, the extra pills I had received had not all been used up, so I agreed to wait once again until they could track down what was going on.  They assured me they would call when they got to the bottom of it.   Later that night I did indeed receive a call.  They were going to have to switch companies and redo their order completely.  But here's the amazing thing.  He said he had managed to locate enough to fill my prescription.  I thanked him and asked when it would be ready.  He said, "As soon as you can get over to Kroger's.  They have it in stock."  There you go.  Shades of "A Miracle of 34th  Street."  Not just recommending the rival, but actually calling them for me.  I picked up these meds at Kroger's, but I think I'll stick with Randall's.   Proverbs 22:4 says, "Humility and the fear of the Lord bring wealth and honor and life."   Father, thank you for small town pharmacies.  Amen.