As The World Turns…According to My Mother

My mom is a complete gossip.  She has a circle of friends and they burn up the phone lines every morning.  I can’t imagine there is ever that much to discuss.  My mom just turned eighty and stays pretty close to the house; the same is true of her friends.  But even still, every morning they run down who did what to whom and why.  It usually is fairly mundane, but sometimes a real juicy bit like a mental breakdown, broken hip, returned item to Kohl’s, too much to drink at the Indian casino or a fender bender at the Homeland will rock their world.  Recently, my mom’s pharmacist of 20 years “disappeared” from behind the counter.  He just doesn’t work there anymore.  My mom just knows he must have been fired.  She went to pick up a prescription, he wasn’t there, she asked why, and in her mind all she got were shady and guarded responses.  She went home and called her friends.  Each friend then called up to the pharmacy and asked where he was…same guarded responses.  This confirmed, to my mother, that there must be more to the story.  My mom then called me.  My partner is a pharmacist, too, so she assumed she would know something; doesn’t matter that we live 800 miles away.  Obviously, Tiffany knew nothing.  My mom has continued her investigation for three days now.  She said this morning, “someone will crack and talk.”  She just can’t stand that she doesn’t know what happened.  I can only imagine how the employees there must scatter when they see her coming.  Our phone conversation this morning was brief; it was limited to the weather and the missing pharmacist.  She repeated everything she had already told me then added her new information…which to my untrained ear sounded like no new information.  She had to go because she was headed up to the store again.  She didn’t really need anything, but she and Lucille were going to patrol the area plus they both cut out a coupon for Pepto Bismol to not seem too suspicious.  It would not surprise me if they wore sunglasses and floppy hats to the store.  Such is my mother’s hobby.

My mom as her 80th birthday party.  She is no doubt thinking about the pharmacist.