Ostomy Memories of a Celebrity Pharmacist

A pharmacist ought not be a celebrity. But in a small town near where I once lived—a two pharmacy, two traffic signal town, in fact—there is a pharmacist who fancies himself a local celebrity. To me, that is highly annoying for reasons that I have difficulty focusing upon.
A pharmacist should be a private, behind-the-scenes kind of person. He is privy to the whole town’s medical secrets. He knows who takes what drug, and he knows why. He knows who has gout, who has cancer, who has trouble peeing, and who is mentally unstable. He knows who’s taking which erectile dysfunction medication. He knows everything.
Yet this particular pill pusher had become a quasi-big shot, a name everyone knew, a big fish in the proverbial small pond. He was active in lots of local activities, like a sports hero with time to kill or a high-profile criminal defendant with court-ordered community service. He shows up everywhere, smiling, pretending to recognize folks, saying “good to seeya, good to seeya.”
Why would a guy like this go to pharmacy college anyway? Shy people study pharmacology, not public personalities. The whole situation smacked of irregularity. I didn’t like it one bit but I felt guilty not liking it because I could never pin down the true basis for my discomfiture. Perhaps it was fear that I’d run into this celebrity pharmacist at some public function and he’d ask me in front of strangers, “Is that Flomax still working for you?”
The coach of the local high school football team should be this high profile, not the guy behind the counter at the drug store. Celebrity pharmacist just sounds like an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp or bureaucratic intelligence. I had such trouble over this that I switched pharmacies.

Hello HenryM.
Thank you for once again stimulation my brain-cells about a subject that, whilst new to me, is somehow familiar. I have no animosity towards people who may be classed as ‘celebrities’ and I have never really given the subject much thought in the past. However, now you have raised the issue, I will try to clarify my thoughts, to try to make sense of something which, at first glance seems a bit non-sensical.
Firstly, in these days of modern TV, where they seem to be vying for the best presentation for the cheapest outlay, we are presented with so many people who are billed as ‘celebrities’, whom I and my wife have never heard or seen before (I have a feeling that one of these might have been your pharmacist!).
Secondly, there is no reason why someone should not achieve ‘celebrity’ status within their own expertise or occupation. If they are ‘good’ (or even outstanding) at what they do, then word will get around that these are the go-to people.
People who seem to want to step outside of their expertise to achieve a degree of ‘fame’ and adulation, are motivated to do so for many different reasons. Sometimes this is because they are not gaining satisfaction from what they ‘normally’ do for a living (or at home), so feel the need to seek attention from elsewhere. Sometimes it is an adrenalin boost and sometimes it is done to try to gain power or advantage over others.
We can, of course, only guess at other people’s reasons for their actions. However, when their behaviours give us that ’gut-feeling’ that there is something ‘iffy’ about them and their motivations, then the chances are, our primitive instincts are alert and functioning well.
When I was still working, and some of my clients would share their unease at certain other people, I would encourage them to spell-out and expand on exactly what it was they were feeling. Invariably, when we teased out the details, we could conclude that their gut-feelings were pretty accurate, and they were absolutely right to be wary about these people.
We managed to ‘expose’ a number of predatory paedophiles and other bullies by not ignoring this initial ill-defined ‘gut-feeling’. By focussing attention and producing a more in-depth analysis of what was on the fringe-edge of people’s consciousness, we were able to uncover more precisely what it was that was troubling them, that they could not quite put their finger on. (It’s a bit like ‘dream-analysis’ except it’s dealing with ‘real-life’).
I am not saying that ‘all-celebrities’ are ‘iffy’, but if some of them produce an uneasy feeling within you, then it might be useful to look into that a bit further.
In the past few years, it has been clearly shown that there are a few ‘celebrities’ who have abused their positions of power and influence to do bad things. If those individuals who had uneasy feelings about them were taken seriously earlier, then maybe the ‘bad-guys’ would have had less opportunities to continue doing bad things to others.
I have always been an advocate of ‘trusting your instincts’ and have (obviously) penned poems to this effect in the past. So, here is a short one to encapsulate this concept:

Best wishes
Bill

          BEFRIENDER BEWARE.

WHO WOULD GET CLOSE TO PRICKLY GORSE
OR STAND BEHIND AN UNKNOWN HORSE.
THOSE WHO WITH THE TIGERS LIE
OR TRUST IN WIDOW-SPIDERS -------DIE.
                                                           B. Withers 1994
                                                    (in ‘Reflections’.1998)

You would find Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink" interesting.  He discusses at length one's ability to accurately and quickly form judgments about people founded on our experience and insight.

I am a pharmacist in my neiborhood and I run into my customers often socially. We are legally bound by HIPPA privacy laws and I would never mention someone's meds or medical condition- I don't even mention they are my customer- I usually just nod in a polite hello. If that pharmacist is disclosing information, report them to the Board of Pharmacy- they take this stuff seriously and the pharmacist will be formally reprimanded at the least. Oh- and btw- not all pharmacists are introverts 😉 but we should all always remain professional. 

Thanks so much for your response.  I took some poetic license with my description of the pharmacist in my post.  It was more fictive than real.  My goal in writing these little squibs is more to entertain than to recreate reality.  You'll see that if you peruse more of my Ostomy Memories memories.  :)