The pharmacy quadrille

It had been an unexpectedly stressful afternoon. We've gone to London Drugs, the boxy drugstore in the Harris Green neighbourhood of Victoria, more than once to pick up prescriptions for Demeter, when she has been unable, due to personal health or the weather, to trundle her walker the ten blocks. Normally, it's a reasonably easy process. We simply provide her name, phone number, and address, and they hand the drugs over.

You may have noticed that these are not normal times.

I arrived to find that the drugstore has introduced a carefully spaced line-up area outside. You enter when the required number of customers have left, and while you're in the queue, you can peruse a whiteboard listing what isn't available.

Inside, there were similar marked-out line-ups for the tills. I fell into the odd quadrille so prevalent these days, looping, backing off and retracing steps to keep the sacred six-foot distance between myself and my fellow pilgrims. The line-up for the pharmacy was also carefully spaced with blue disks with white feet outlines on them. Most people carefully stood on the markers, with the exception of a few men, usually on the younger side. One fellow, dressed inexplicably in capris and flip-flops, on an afternoon with a high of eight degrees, stood halfway between the markers, and stared sideways into space.

The holy grail was the pharmacy pick-up desk, staffed by two rather anxious young women, whose task was to take information, then desperately rifle through several racks of hanging baggies, before returning for payment -- or to tell the unfortunate customer why their order wasn't there.

I was both: Demeter had two prescriptions, one of which wasn't there. It took several minutes to establish this, while I gave apologetic glances at those six and twelve feet behind me. I think they said something encouraging, but they were too far away for me to hear.

So I got sent to another line-up for a consultation with a pharmacist, who disappeared in search of a substitute for Demeter's prescription. I spent the time being grateful that I was able to sit, before being sent back to the original line to pay for the second prescription, which contained tiny irregularly-shaped pills, which Demeter will have to cut into quarters.

Trudging back, I decided that, despite my aching limbs, I would take a route past our old house, because the cherry tree is in bloom, and I have pleasant memories of gazing out our bedroom window into clouds of pink.

As I approached, I spotted what looked like a grey vase with a shiny bronze patch on it.

Then I realized it was a cat, lapping up the late afternoon sun, stress-free.

I resolved to do the same.