During my freshman year in high school, my science teacher assigned us to interview people in the community about how they use science in their careers. Although I don’t remember most of the people I spoke with, I can tell you that I spent meaningful time with a local community pharmacist who changed my life.
What I saw was a man who loved his career and truly cared for his patients. In an instant, I knew that I wanted to become a pharmacist, and I never wavered from that goal throughout high school.
Knowing what you want to be when you grow up at age 14 is unusual, but it is very liberating. I simply had to work backwards to figure out how to achieve my goal of becoming a pharmacist.
After high school, I chose to attend Ohio Northern University (ONU) because it had a unique pharmacy program. Rather than attending college for 2 years and then applying to the pharmacy program, ONU students were admitted to the College of Pharmacy from day one.
Although it was expensive, being in pharmacy school from day one and avoiding the risk of rejection made it worthwhile for me.
In college, I spent a lot of time in the library. Although the classwork was difficult, I did well with one exception: organic chemistry.
I did fail organic chemistry—a notorious “weed out” course—but I successfully retook the class over the summer and graduated on time with the rest of my classmates. Failing a course is a difficult stumbling block, but I stood strong and persevered.
Today, I’m thankful for the wonderful pharmacy profession for so many reasons.
First, I’m thankful that community pharmacists are the health care professionals most accessible to the public. If my local pharmacist wasn’t accessible to me, then I likely would have taken a different career path.
Second, I’m proud of the work we pharmacists do, the diversity of our career options, and the relationships we share with our patients and fellow health care providers.
Pharmacy is a profession that makes a real difference in people’s lives. It certainly has made all the difference in mine.
Bad Behavior, Canada, Exes/Old Flames, Fights/Breakups, home | Romantic | January 4, 2019
(Things my soon-to-be-ex told me, in reference to his five-plus-year affair, and my sarcastic responses…)
Scumbag: “No, I wasn’t planning to divorce you so I could marry her. Of course not! I was doing it for you, in case you might want to marry again.”
Me: “Wow! With that level of selfless concern for others, the only reason you haven’t been canonized is that you’re not Catholic.”
Scumbag: “She was really more of a friend than anything else. We were just best friends at work.”
Me: “Oh, I see. So, I guess you also f*** Joe, your non-work best friend?”
Scumbag: “I preferred her because we never had conflict. She was more accepting.”
Me: “Imagine that. One boozy, lying cheater is more accepting of another boozy, lying cheater’s boozing, lying, cheating ways? Who’d’ve thunk it? You mean to tell me there’s no conflict in a relationship when you do everything a woman asks of you and constantly kiss her a**? You think maybe you should have tried that with me instead of being a selfish asshole for our entire marriage? Hmm?”
Scumbag: “I know I cheated but I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”
Me: “Oh, you wanted to divorce me to be with her but still have me in your life. So, you figured we’d do what, have threeways?”
Scumbag: “I do still love you, in my way.”
Me: “Aw, so sweet. It’s just a shame your way totally sucks, isn’t it?”
I Used To Be A Weird Husband, But Then I Took An Arrow To The Knee
Bizarre, Games, home, Pennsylvania, Silly, Spouses & Partners, USA | Romantic | January 3, 2019
(My husband is not a gamer, but he really likes watching me use my PlayStation because he enjoys my adventures. It should be noted that in “Dragon Age: Origins,” my character is married to Alistair, who looks and acts a bit like my husband. Currently, I’m playing “Skyrim.” My Dragonborn is married to Farkas, a sweet-natured but somewhat dim hunk of muscle who looks kind of like the Winter Soldier, and I’m walking around our house because I can’t find him.)
Me: “That’s weird; he’s usually right here at the fire, cooking. Or sometimes he’s asleep in the bed.”
Husband: “Maybe he ran off with your housecarl.”
Me: “I don’t think he’s smart enough to come up with that.”
(I finally try the last possible room, which is where my alchemy table is located, and I just have to stop and stare. A glitch has Farkas sitting down INSIDE the alchemy table, so that his head and shoulders are protruding from the top.)
Farkas: “Yes, love?”
Husband: *after a pause* “This is weirder than anything Alistair’s ever done, and I didn’t know that was possible.”
Me: “What I hear you saying is that I have weird taste in husbands.”
Austria, Boyfriend/Girlfriend, Bus, Extra Stupid, Vienna | Romantic | January 2, 2019
(I am on a bus when I overhear these bits and pieces of a conversation between a man and his girlfriend. Apparently the man has bought a children’s ticket — don’t know what for — for himself and is now angry that he’ll have to pay a fine. Apparently it’s really unclear that a man in his 30s probably doesn’t qualify for a children’s ticket. And then he says this gem
Engaged, home, Lazy/Unhelpful, New York, USA | Romantic | January 1, 2019
(After dating a year and a half, my fiancé and I are planning our wedding, or rather I am. My husband mentions he wants to hire some of his friends who run a photography and DJ business. Other than that, he generally says, “Whatever you want, dear.” All my efforts to get him more involved with any other aspects come to naught. I ask him to contact his friend while I do all the other bits. As the wedding date comes closer, I realize he hasn’t contacted his friends; he’d expected me to do that, as well, since I was the one “planning everything.” I freak out a little because it is so close to the wedding and his friends are now booked up. I scramble to find replacements for the photographer and DJ. At this point my husband-to-be catches on to how stressful the planning has been, and the following conversation occurs.)
Fiancé: “You are really stressing out over this, aren’t you? You know you don’t have to do it all on your own.”
(I feel the ball of stress that has been sitting in my chest for the last few weeks loosening a little bit.)
Me: “Thank you, I—“
Fiancé: *continuing his thought* “Just ask my mom for whatever help you need!”
(So close, yet so spectacularly missing the point.)
Engaged, home, Lazy/Unhelpful, New York, USA | Romantic | January 1, 2019
(After dating a year and a half, my fiancé and I are planning our wedding, or rather I am. My husband mentions he wants to hire some of his friends who run a photography and DJ business. Other than that, he generally says, “Whatever you want, dear.” All my efforts to get him more involved with any other aspects come to naught. I ask him to contact his friend while I do all the other bits. As the wedding date comes closer, I realize he hasn’t contacted his friends; he’d expected me to do that, as well, since I was the one “planning everything.” I freak out a little because it is so close to the wedding and his friends are now booked up. I scramble to find replacements for the photographer and DJ. At this point my husband-to-be catches on to how stressful the planning has been, and the following conversation occurs.)
Fiancé: “You are really stressing out over this, aren’t you? You know you don’t have to do it all on your own.”
(I feel the ball of stress that has been sitting in my chest for the last few weeks loosening a little bit.)
Me: “Thank you, I—“
Fiancé: *continuing his thought* “Just ask my mom for whatever help you need!”
(So close, yet so spectacularly missing the point.)
Alcohol, Boyfriend/Girlfriend, home, Illinois, Pets & Animals, Silly, USA | Romantic | December 30, 2018
(My boyfriend and I both really want a dog, but between our crazy work hours, we just wouldn’t be able to take care of one. We’re at my parents’ house for a party, and although [Boyfriend] is usually good at pacing himself, tonight, he gets very drunk, and proceeds to spend the next hour petting my parents’ dog — who is loving the attention — and telling her what a good girl she is. I’m helping my parents clean up when I hear him actually singing to the dog! The next day on the drive home, we’re talking about it.)
Boyfriend: “Oh, God, I can’t believe I got that drunk. Did I do anything too embarrassing?”
Me: *laughing* “Define, ‘too embarrassing.’”
Boyfriend: “Oh, God, what did I do?!”
Me: “Nothing bad. You just got really happy and goofy, and you were petting the dog and telling her how awesome she is. You did start singing to her towards the end of the night, though.”
Boyfriend: “Oh, no. I can’t believe I did that in front of your parents!”
Me: “Don’t worry; they don’t care. After you fell asleep, they both had stories about getting drunk and acting stupid in front of each other’s families. They’re definitely not about to hold it against you.”
Boyfriend: “You sure? I still feel bad.”
Me: “I’m very sure. Although…” *laughing* “You never sing to me! Or tell me how pretty and awesome I am! I’m a little jealous of the dog.”
Boyfriend: *guilty* “Of course I love you more than the dog. But… I live with you. I see you every day. I don’t get to see dogs every day; when I do, it’s an occasion!”
At The Checkout, Harassment, Holidays, Pennsylvania, Retail, USA | Right Romantic | December 27, 2018
(It is the holiday season. My shift ends in ten minutes and I just want it to end without incident. My male boss is at the cash register next to me; I’m female. A middle-aged man comes up to the counter; he’s a bit annoying, but seems relatively harmless. He pays and leaves, but comes back after my boss goes off to do other things. I am twenty, but not used to people hitting on me, as I look around fourteen.)
Me: “Hello again.”
Customer: “Just decided to get something else.”
Me: “All right. What was your phone number for the rewards card again?”
Customer: *provides number*
Me: “All ri—“
Customer: “Remember it. I’m free after seven.”
Me: *too creeped out to respond*
Customer: “It was a joke.”
Me: “…”
Customer: “You’re supposed to laugh.”
Me: “Uh-huh.”
(The transaction continues in silence until the computer prompts me to ask if the customer wants his receipt emailed. It does this at random.)
Me: *trying to continue smiling* “Would you be interested in having your receipts and coupons sent directly to your email?”
Customer: “No, but I’ll happily give you my email.”
Me: *failing to continue smiling* “Please confirm the information on the screen. Okay. Your total is [total].”
(He hands me cash. I hand him change and accidentally drop some.)
Me: “Sorry!”
Customer: “Don’t worry; you can throw money at me anytime.” *leaves*
At The Checkout, Harassment, Holidays, Pennsylvania, Retail, USA | Right Romantic | December 27, 2018
(It is the holiday season. My shift ends in ten minutes and I just want it to end without incident. My male boss is at the cash register next to me; I’m female. A middle-aged man comes up to the counter; he’s a bit annoying, but seems relatively harmless. He pays and leaves, but comes back after my boss goes off to do other things. I am twenty, but not used to people hitting on me, as I look around fourteen.)
Me: “Hello again.”
Customer: “Just decided to get something else.”
Me: “All right. What was your phone number for the rewards card again?”
Customer: *provides number*
Me: “All ri—“
Customer: “Remember it. I’m free after seven.”
Me: *too creeped out to respond*
Customer: “It was a joke.”
Me: “…”
Customer: “You’re supposed to laugh.”
Me: “Uh-huh.”
(The transaction continues in silence until the computer prompts me to ask if the customer wants his receipt emailed. It does this at random.)
Me: *trying to continue smiling* “Would you be interested in having your receipts and coupons sent directly to your email?”
Customer: “No, but I’ll happily give you my email.”
Me: *failing to continue smiling* “Please confirm the information on the screen. Okay. Your total is [total].”
(He hands me cash. I hand him change and accidentally drop some.)
Me: “Sorry!”
Customer: “Don’t worry; you can throw money at me anytime.” *leaves*
Chicago, Funny Names, Illinois, Office, Party, Spouses & Partners, USA | | Romantic | July 10, 2019
(One of my coworkers got married, and a few weeks later he is still very much in his honeymoon phase. Everyone in the office has heard about when he met her, when they started dating, and when they got engaged through passing comments during casual conversations, but none of us has ever met her. He decides to attend a work party and bring his wife along. The running gag all night long is his overuse of terms of endearment.)
Coworker: “Darling, can you come here?”
Coworker: “Love, come meet my manager!”
Coworker: “Did you find your phone, sweetheart?’
Coworker: “I’m just going to run to the car, babe.”
Coworker: “Honey, have you seen my keys?”
Coworker: “Sweetie, can I borrow your phone?”
Coworker: “I can’t find my wallet, dear.”
Coworker: “Sugar, can you hand me that glass?”
Coworker: “Oh, angel! Come meet [Other Coworker]!”
Coworker: “Hey, lover, what time do you want to head out?”
(Eventually…)
Wife: “[Coworker]! Do you even know my name?!”
(I feel like I have to mention that she said it jokingly. They’ve been married for about seven years now, and he still prefers pet names. I wish them the best!)
Australia, Family & Kids, home, Jerk, Spouses & Partners, Sydney | | Romantic | July 5, 2019
(My husband had seven siblings who each had children long before we married. He would never have anything to do with his nieces and nephews when they were babies, telling me that all babies were ugly. But when our daughter was born, he fell in love, and gushed over how beautiful she was. He constantly takes photos of her. About a week after we brought her home a package of photos that were taken at the hospital arrives by post, and he carries it in for me.)
Husband: “There’s a package for you.”
Me: *opening* “Oh, it’s the photos that were taken of [Daughter] at the hospital.”
Husband: “Show me.” *looks at photos* “That’s not [Daughter].”
Me: “Yes, it is.” *pulls out the invoice for the photos*
Husband: “No, she was never this ugly. What’s that you have in your hand?”
Me: “The invoice for the photos; we need to decide which sizes do we want to keep and pay for them.”
Husband: “No, they can be sent back. That’s not our daughter; she was never that ugly.”
Arizona, Awesome, Great Stuff, Mall, Silly, Spouses & Partners, USA | | Romantic | June 14, 2019
(While we’re at the mall, I sit down at a table to take a break while my wife wanders off to look in [National Candle Store Chain]. When she comes back, she is grinning and can barely contain her laughter.)
Me: “What are you laughing at?”
Wife: “Well, I saw a post on the Internet about a specific candle scent. Apparently, someone claimed it smelled like the perfect man. The post has a lot of replies with variations on the theme of, ‘I went and smelled it, and you were right; it is the scent of the perfect man!’ So, I was curious and had to go smell it myself.”
Me: “And? What did it smell like?”
Wife: “You!”
Me: *confused* “What?”
Wife: “It is the same scent as your body wash!”
(I don’t mean to brag, but… I have multiple people on the Internet claiming that I’m the perfect man. I still tease my wife about this.)
Thor, Loki, and Jane Foster Walk Into A Furniture Store…
home, Math & Science, Spouses & Partners, USA | | Romantic | June 11, 2019
(My husband and I are following a set of instructions that include the phrase, “Press gently, but very firmly.” We are getting frustrated by the fact that, a) it doesn’t seem to be doing much, and b) they haven’t elaborated more on HOW gently, HOW firmly, etc. It should be noted that my husband is a mechanical engineer.)
Husband: “Just how firmly do they mean?”
Me: *somewhat snarky* “’Press gently, but with a force of however many PSI…’”
(PSI stands for “Pounds per Square Inch.”)
Husband: “No, PSI would be too large for something this small. I don’t have anywhere near an inch to push on here.”
Me: “Okay… How about PS-half-inch? PS-quarter-inch?”
Husband: “That’s not going to work, either. You probably need something in metric measurements. They scale down more easily.”
Me: *a bit snarky again* “Okay, fine. PSCM? Pounds per square centimeter?”
(My husband got a horrified look on his face and told me this was why I was not an engineer. Apparently, one cannot mix metric and imperial units quite as easily as I thought. I assumed that there would be an equation that could calculate it, but apparently, such an equation would be a massive pain to work with.)
home, Movies & TV, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Spouses & Partners, USA | Romantic | December 24, 2018
(A commercial for Outlander comes on while my husband is watching football. Having enjoyed the story and historical fiction in general, I get distracted and, consequently, stop what I am saying mid-sentence.)
Husband: “I guess I need to get a shirt like that?”
Cheaters, Great Stuff, Holidays, Retail, UK | Right Romantic | December 24, 2018
(I am working on the fragrance counter of a large store on Christmas Eve when a man asks for my help selecting presents — women’s perfume. He tells me he needs two presents, one for under €100 and one under €20. He chooses to go over budget with the more expensive gift, and we are now browsing for the smaller gift.)
Me: “Okay, it seems you like [Fragrance #1 ] more than the others. It costs €25 for 75 mls, which is a little over your budget, but you do get a big bottle, which is good value.”
Customer: “Hmm… Yes, I do like it a lot more than [Fragrance #2 ] and [Fragrance #3 ], but it is a little bit too expensive, seeing as I’ve gone over budget with the other one.”
Me: “Okay, well, we do have [Fragrance #4 ] on sale for €19.99 for 50 mls. It’s a very good brand, and a nice, medium-sized bottle.”
Customer: “Right, I’ll go with that one, then! Any chance you could gift wrap them both for me?”
Me: “Great. Let me just scan them through, and I will wrap them while we put your card through.”
(I wrap them, and then notice that the bottles are hard to tell apart when wrapped in the same paper.)
Me: “Would I be able to put a name on either gift for you, sir? They look very alike, and it might be hard to tell them apart without labeling them.”
Customer: “Oh, they do look the same! Yeah, could you put [Name #1 ] on the [expensive perfume] and [Name #2 ] on the other?”
Me: “No problem. Let me just grab my pen!”
Customer: “Actually… could we swap that around? [Name #2 ] on the [expensive perfume] and [Name #1 ] on the other?”
Me: “Of course.”
Customer: *laughing* “You see one’s for the wife, and the other’s for a colleague… Can’t be mixing them up!”
Me: *smiling and joking with him* “No, you’d be in trouble if you did!”
Customer: “Yeah, the wife mightn’t mind [cheap perfume], but [Name #2 ] told me specifically to get [expensive perfume]!”
Me: “…”
(It made me wonder just how close he and his “colleague” were.)
Bad Behavior, Cambridgeshire, College & University, England, Harassment, Health & Body, UK | Romantic | December 18, 2018
(There is a girl in my college class who was in a bad car accident when she was in her early teens, which resulted in her being heavily scarred down the left side of her body — including severe facial scarring — having a pronounced limp, and missing her left arm. Psychologically speaking, she’s sound, and she’s a very independent person, though also very quiet and polite. There’s this guy in our class who’s always jumping up to help her with everything, despite the fact she asks him not to and constantly says she doesn’t need his help and that she’s okay. Over a month later, she’s kind of given up telling him to stop because 1: she doesn’t like confrontation and 2: she’s aware it’s coming from a “good place,” so to speak. Well, that’s what we all thought, anyway. It’s just before lesson, and the guy has asked to talk to the girl alone, so she goes a little bit away to chat. Since he wants to talk to the girl alone, we all watch from a respectable distance. We can see him speaking, then her putting her hand up in front of her. And we’re like, “Oh, he just asked her out and she said no.” She goes to head back, but he stops her and talks a bit more animatedly. She’s a bit more aggressive with her hand gesture back, and walks as quickly as she can back to the group. He follows quite angrily, so we start to walk towards her, as well, just in case.)
Guy: *shouting* “But why?! I’m a nice guy! I did all those things for you!”
Girl: *firmly and fairly loudly* “I didn’t ask you to! In fact, I asked you not to, and you ignored me.”
Guy: “But I still did it! You owe me!”
Girl: “I don’t owe you anything.”
(Our male teacher has arrived at the area at this point, and is also making his way over in case he needs to intervene.)
Guy: “No one else will date you! Not with those scars! You won’t get anyone better than me! I’m willing to look past those scars; don’t think you’ll find anyone else that will!”
(There’s mass shock and everyone freezes. Someone in the group, no idea who, gasps.)
Girl: “Go suck a d**k!”
(More mass shock follows, and another gasp, though there are also some titters.)
Guy: “[Teacher]! Did you hear what she said?!”
Teacher: “You can’t suck my d**k; that’s illegal!”
(The guy stormed off. He went and complained about “bullying by classmates and the teacher” to the reception, which was quickly dropped when the situation was fully explained. He quit college soon after because others found out somehow. Don’t be a “Nice Guy.”)
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