I stopped at ‘Ivory Farmacia’ at the corner of 6th Avenida and 6th Calle a few days ago to pick up a generic version of Claritin for my daughter, who it seems is allergic to anything that grows or moves, and some ‘medicine’ for the Wife which comes wrapped in foil in a chocolate brown wrapper with large white letters.  To my dismay, the pharmacist didn’t have Loratadina, the generic recommended to me by friends.  Instead, he recommended an alternative which he said was even better because it works faster and longer.

When it comes time to pay the bill, the total comes to 500Q, which seems a lot for some allergy medicine and the largest Hershey’s bar in Central America, but since I’ve already been in the store for 10 minutes, which is about 10 minutes too long for my comfort, I pay the bill and rush out.  Later, I look at the receipt and realize I paid over 400Q for 30 tablets of an antihistamine, which seems a little on the high side, even by Gringo standards.

I return to the pharmacy with a friend who’s fluent and ask again about the drug and the cost.  The pharmacist explains that this is the best drug, it works in the stomach instead of the pancreas and is therefore more effective, etc., in the process convincing me that the drug rep for this particular brand must be very good.  However, my friend mentions that he pays a lot less for the generic, so we walk to Fenix Farmacia, on 5th.

Here the sales person suggests we buy Histaprin, which is only 30Q for 10 pills (10 days) worth.  He very earnestly and repeatedly tells us this is the exact same thing as Loratadine, which is 125Q for the same amount.  So we buy the Histaprin and I return to Ivory Farmacia to see about a refund.

There’s a little surprise waiting for me upon my return:  even though it’s only been about an hour, I paid cash and I have the unopened box and the receipt and the same guy is still there, he won’t give me a refund.  He’s happy to give me an exchange, however.  Additionally, he takes one look at my Histaprin and informs me that it’s not the same thing as Loratadine, instead, it’s a generic knockoff manufactured in Guatemala and makes people very drowsy.  Or as he put it, “It is very good if you like to sleep”.

Now, I’ve never been one to have difficulty spending money.  However, when you’re under the gun to spend 400Q at the farmacia and you’re generally healthy (not counting my liver), well, it can be a challenge.  I went ahead and bought the Loratadine that he said he didn’t have an hour earlier, but that was only 125Q.  I bought a few packs of batteries, more medicine for the Wife and some kids’ aspirin, and kept cursing my luck that this hadn’t happened to me at a liquor store instead.

I had a running total in my mind and was pretty sure I was close to the 400Q.  The young man behind the counter who had been assigned to handle my refund exchange started inputting items in the computer.  He seemed very confused by the process and had to keep asking another employee for help.  Things slowed down even more when school let out and parents and children starting coming into the pharmacy to buy minutes for their phones.  Apparently the phone minutes are of greater importance to the pharmacy since all other transactions were put on hold while chubby little school girls bought 5Q worth of minutes and adolescent boys with too much gel in their hair argued with the pharmacist about how many minutes they had, or should have had, which eventually led to a long phone call to Tigo, and well, you can imagine the scene.

45 minutes later the clerk had finished inputting my items and declared I was still 30Q short, and could not give me ANY change.  I grabbed a Snickers bar off the counter and handed it to him…21Q to go.  I grabbed a thing of tictacs…16Q to go.  I looked at the growing line behind me and told the guy I was done-I didn’t want any more and didn’t care about the change.  This created a big problem.  He conferred with his colleague, then disappeared in the back for a supervisor, a Wizard of Oz character who sits behind the mirrored glass.

I glanced at the bag and thought about just running for it; after all, they had my money and then some and there was no way the waif of a man at the door could stop me.   I had to shake my head to get the thought out of my mind, once again wondering how only six months here had led to such a degeneration in my thought processes that I would consider fleeing the seen of my own excess change. No wonder all the expats here are a little nutty…

Anyway, aforementioned clerk reappears and informs me they must make the books balance perfectly.  Yeah, right. I told him to give the money to the poor or buy themselves a few beers.  He smiled and said “It is not like that here.”  I contemplated that for a moment and considered a great many appropriate responses but instead said, “Please find me something behind the counter that I will one day need that costs exactly 16Q.”

As it turns out, this was exactly the solution they wanted to hear, because without even looking he stuck his hand under the counter, grabbed a handful of something, dropped it in my bag, punched a button on the computer, and said, “Feliz tarde”.  Here’s what I ended up with:

16Q worth of Tylenol