WINNIPEG – A local Shoppers Drug Mart has spurred rumours of the apocalypse after its pharmacy opted to pick up the phone.
The Shoppers pharmacy has become so notorious for its lack of communication with patients that customers were known to joke that the location would only answer the phone “when hell freezes over.” As soon as news of the answered call spread, patients checked the ground for frost.
“I just never thought I’d live to see the day, you know?” said patient Shelby Gardner, emerging from a three-day migraine she endured after the pharmacy failed to communicate that her medication was on back order. “Although, if they’re answering their phone now, I guess none of us will be around for much longer. Good thing Shoppers also sells tin foil.”
Fellow patient Sophie Wong agrees. “Usually when I call I just get automatically put on hold with a loop of Avril Lavigne’s ‘Complicated’ that sounds like it’s playing on a HitClip,” she said, rushing to use up her PC Optimum points on canned goods, batteries, and a gas mask.
Several other Canadian brands were observed displaying curiously apocalyptic behaviour, with Rogers actually fixing customers’ Internet issues, Sobeys lowering grocery prices, and MuchMusic playing music again.
Asked if the move was spurred by a desire to provide better healthcare or customer service, pharmacy owner Andrew Jenkins was quick to put those notions to rest.
“Oh no, we don’t care about any of that,” said Jenkins over the sound of a patient actively having a seizure in the skincare aisle. “We don’t care if people accidentally mix medications they shouldn’t, or if they go into extreme withdrawal because we didn’t dispense their meds in time. The world is ending – we gotta make as many sales as possible so Galen Weston Jr. can afford to build his bunker that he’ll definitely let me share.”
Other ominous changes the pharmacy recently implemented include paying their workers a living wage, changing the in-store music to Great Big Sea’s cover of “It’s The End of the World As We Know It”, and replacing all employee name tags with No Name stickers, which parent company Loblaws insists is strictly for branding purposes and not to avoid accountability for poor customer service.
At press time, the pharmacy was once again not answering their phone as the building had been blown away in an extreme storm due to climate change. The Avril Lavigne hold music was still playing.
