What is it with our neighborhood Walgreens? On Friday, Ryan and I went to Walgreens to pick up some muscle cream for my back (more about that later). We walk back to the pharmacy department and are looking for the muscle creams and see them in between the Assistant Store Manager and a crying customer. Great. The Assistant Manager is yelling at the customer telling her they did everything right. He was getting extremely agitated by the upset customer. It was very uncomfortable to be standing in between them, trying to have a conversation with Ryan about the store brand vs name brand. Ryan was smart enough to step to the other side, but for some reason, I stayed in the middle. A couple seconds later the Assistant Manager walked away from crying customer and said something like, "I give up. I mean really I wasn't mean to her. Was I?" He said this as he walked behind the pharmacy counter, loud enough for the ten customers waiting to hear. One guy said, "No man you were fine." While another woman said, "Yes sir, you were very rude. You were very mean to her." Then the Assistant Manager started talking loudly to that customer before stating, "I quit." This was an empty threat of course, as he was very dramatic. The lady who stood up for the crying customer went over to the crying customer and talked with her. From what I gather, the crying customer's daughter needed a medication. It sounded like they had been in multiple times to get it filled and was unsuccessful. This particular time, the crying customer thought she was getting another medication (or the medication didn't work) than what the doctor had prescribed. Crying customer was mad at Walgreens. Assistant Store Manager was trying to explain that the Pharmacist filled the prescription according to the doctor's script. Walgreens did not mess up. But he was yelling this and she was crying and English was not her first language. All not good combinations when trying to provide great customer service. When the other customer was talking to the crying customer it seemed like they were getting to a resolution. The customer was patient, understanding, and offered advice on what to do next. While it was an extremely unpleasant experience at Walgreens, at least crying customer got to meet another customer who can possibly help her! While crying customer and the other customer were chatting away from the pharmacy counter, the Assistant Store Manager was still carrying on talking about the incident. I was embarrassed for him. So I said a little louder than my speaking conversation with Ryan, "Ok already, stop talking about it." To Ryan this seemed like I was shouting it through a megaphone, but with all the commotion around the pharmacy area and customers talking and the staff talking, there was no way he could hear me, still, Ryan hushed me. :) I love him.

This experience is not the first weird thing that has happened at that particular Walgreens. A couple months ago I was standing in the line to pay for my items when a man walks through the front door very pissed off (for lack of a better word) and a woman hurrying behind him yelling something. Once she got through the door I could hear here, "You owe me an apology. How dare you step on me like that." The man, "Lady, I said I was sorry in the parking lot." Female, "It was the way you said it. Who do you think you are?" The man just hurried off to do his shopping, but the female continued, "Excuse me, excuse me. Did you see what that man just did to me?" Customers are staring at her but nobody is responding. "I want someone to take care of this. Can I speak to the manager please?" Again not really talking to anyone in particular, just talking. The manager was the person ringing behind the counter with a line of customers about ten deep. The manager responded, "I am the manager. I will be with you in a couple seconds here." The lady, "Did you see what he did to me?" The manager, "No, you said it was in the parking lot. I will be with you soon please." The lady, "Well I want you to do something." The manager, still ringing customers up at this point, "What do you want me to do?" The lady, "Ask him to leave this store and not to come back. This is a terrible way for your customers to treat each other." The manager, "I'll be right with you ma'am." And then thankfully my items were rung up and I paid and was able to leave.

Why do the managers insist on speaking to an irritate or upset customer over other customers? Why don't they take them aside and speak with them? I don't get it. I will continue to go to the Walgreens, now I'm entertained and looking forward to what might happen next! :)

So my back ... the reason we were at Walgreens in the first place. Friday afternoon at work, I was putting away folding tables from our quarterly lunch. Usually I take the plastic tables and slide them along the ground to the storage closet. Today, I used the cart like our Office Specialist does and had to stack them on the cart. The cart comes up to my waist and I had to lift the tables up and put them on the cart. It was my last table and when I was getting it off the cart, I felt my muscle tighten up and sting a little bit. For the rest of the afternoon I was in pain. I took 4 Advil and still did not have have any relief. I was ready to go home because i was in such pain, but had way too much work to do. Holding my head up at my desk hurt the most, if I laid my head down then it felt better. Driving was difficult. Turning my neck to the left to see if there were cars hurt like heck. When I got home, I laid on the couch and it seemed to feel a little better. Ryan and I had a meeting with Father Campbell and Ryan wanted to cancel, but I said we should go. By the way, the meeting with Father Campbell went really really well!!!! Laying on my back was the best. Ryan massaged my back for about a half hour and it felt much better. The muscle cream helped some, I took some tylenol PM and went to bed. Saturday I was still in pain but needed to work it out. I didn't want to baby it too much because I thought it might help to do stretches and other movement to help it loosen up. I took Dohns (spelling?) back medicine which helped relaxed the muscles. This morning it feels better, not perfect, but better than Friday that's for sure!

Each year, St. Louis Park has a home remodeling tour. The city sponsors this day event where six houses that were recently remodeled open their doors to the public for an afternoon and have their vendors on site for people to walk through and get ideas. Melissa and I are going to the houses today. I'm excited as the houses are just like ours. We can get ideas and get names of people that were used so we can have them come out and give us estimates. Today I'm looking for a window person. I think in the next year or so we will need to replace our front windows. luckily that's only three. but we also might want to do the three bedroom windows and the 2 kitchen windows. I'm also looking for a house that had their basement redone so we can have a person come out to give us an estimate. I think we fully intend on finishing the basement ourselves, but we want to know how much it would cost if we were to have someone do it. I love looking at houses so this is like the biggest treat for me, the best part, it's free! Hopefully the houses will be nice and decorated unlike the houses we would view while we were searching to buy!