Ya….even with an abscessed tooth, woozy, achey, no sleep, and in pain…… and feeling like crap.….full of antibiotics and dreading the pulling of my old tooth tomorrow morning, I still…..still…think of nothing but you.
I know what you are all thinking “that Tom thinks of everyone but himself”.
We’ll I don’t, but in this case it sort of fits.
So I was sitting down at Value Drug getting an antibiotic prescription filled to get the tooth ready for pulling tomorrow and sort of looking around in that little waiting area they have down there. Didn’t want to touch anything or even be there. That’s where sick people go. It’s real nice and clean but…you know what I mean.
I just knew all those Pharma people back of the counter were wondering what my antibiotic prescription was for. Imagining all sorts of scenarios, so I made sure they all knew I had a bad tooth. Can’t be too careful in this town. Stuff gets around.
I never go in there, Linda always takes care of that stuff and wasn’t even sure what to do.
In the building midst of my ever growing anxiety over everything, I noticed this big grey box for people to put drugs in. This thing is the size of a mailbox. “Why would people put drugs in a box in a pharmacy?” This is where people get drugs and take them home.
You know me, I had to ask.
Ok…..I don’t know about these things and I am sure others don’t either. This is who this post is for. My fellow oblivious citizens of the town of Montesano. And there are many of us, we are everywhere.
Apparently……….putting old drugs into the trash, flushing them down the toilet, or waiting for “that relative” to come visit, is a bad bad bad way to get rid of old drugs.
Personally, I never throw them away. I have this cream for something I had back in 1978. There is still half a tube left. I keep it in a plastic bag with the cap on it. It should still be good for something. Right? Probably lot more money now. Like old moldy cheese, cut off the outside but the inside is good. If the world falls apart, I will have that going for me. Might even be worth something. Ya, Im keeping it. You guys making fun of me would be the first at my door asking for a dab.
Anyway, the nice lady sat with me and told me that indeed lots of people bring in their old drugs for disposal and that it keeps our waterways safe. It makes sense. Fish could get high swimming around in contaminated drug water. We don’t want high fish. Worse!
The drug box is actually sort of high tech. You could break into the pharmacy at night and strip the place clean, but you ain’t getting into that box. I found this interesting,
When the ceremony of opening the box is done, two people have to be present and the contents sealed secure with documentation. The pouch Is then transported by a secret process to a facility in Oregon dedicated to burning it all up. The bags come from all over the region. I can see the need for the process. Think about it….lots of drugs. Drugs of all kinds. We are a sick needy people and overly medicate ourselves from cradle to grave. Hundreds, thousands of pounds of nasty stuff all mixed together. Drugs are chemicals. It makes sense.
In the end…..the furnace and smokestack square the circle, billowing the smoke into the air.
I wouldn’t want to live near that place, I know that.
I found this interesting in that I had no idea this was such a big industry or even existed….. and so involved. I’m not writing about everything, security you know. I would have come up with something much more low tech. An old box maybe in a backroom.
I know a couple of great places to dig holes in the woods too if someone ever needed a safe quiet out-of-the- way place to make something disappear. It’s none of your business why I know.
Value Drug is doing the town a great service. It costs them money, they don’t make anything doing this. In the process, the fish in the creek, the birds in the landfill, and the leech into our food supply is kept safely in check.
Thank you Value Drug.
Shop local.
Montesano Today 