I put this up here on 6/17/06. It's about one of a long string of clueless folks I've encountered in drug stores. Fortunately, this woman was not the pharmacist…
Most of the Sav-on drug stores which dot Southern California (and elsewhere) are all turning into CVS Pharmacies. The parent company of the latter purchased the former and I don't think they've gotten as far as changing the signs outside but legally, the change was official a few days ago.
Yesterday afternoon, I went into a store that said Sav-on on the outside and Sav-on all over the insides. I'm guessing that if you went around the store and counted, you'd find the name "Sav-on" at least a thousand times. Over the pharmacy, for instance, there was a huge, six-foot sign that said "Sav-On 24-Hour Pharmacy." Absolutely nothing else had changed except that taped to all the cash registers were little paper signs that said, "This is now a CVS Pharmacy," and then under that in smaller type, the signs explained that if you pay by check, you have to make the check payable to the new name, not the old.
Ahead of me in the one checkout line was a woman, perhaps seventy, who was utterly confused by all this. She had purchased a tube of Vagisil (I think it was) which her doctor told her to get at Sav-on. She'd found it on the shelf and carried it to the register…where she'd discovered, much to her horror, that she was not in a Sav-on. I had to stand and wait through about ten minutes of conversation, the last part of which went roughly like this…
LADY: Why does it say Sav-on if this is a CBS Pharmacy?
CLERK: CVS Pharmacy, ma'am. And it used to be a Sav-on but now it's a CVS Pharmacy.
LADY: Well then, I can't buy this here. My doctor told me to buy it at a Sav-on.
CLERK: This is the exact same store it always was.
LADY: If it's the exact same store, why isn't it a Sav-on?
CLERK: Because Sav-on was sold. And anyway, you can't buy it at a Sav-on. There are no more Sav-ons. They're all CVS now.
LADY: (getting panicked) But my doctor said I needed this and I had to buy it at a Sav-on…
At this point, I decide that if I'm ever going to make it out of this store, I'm going to need to step in and clear things up.
ME: Excuse me. Your doctor doesn't care where you purchase this item. It's the medicine that's important, not where you buy it. This is the exact same product they sold here when this was officially a Sav-on.
LADY: Then you think it would be safe to buy it here?
ME: Absolutely. For all intents and purposes, this is still a Sav-on.
LADY: Well, in that case, I'll buy it here. Thank you. [to Clerk:] I'm going to need to write a check.
CLERK: Certainly. Please make it out to "CVS Pharmacy."
LADY: But this man said this was still a Sav-on!
At this point, I gave up and went to another register. In a Walgreens.