If you had discovered your small child had an eyefull of nasty pinkeye infection, what would your first move be? That’s right, you’d take your trusty bottle of bleach to every visible surface call the doctor to secure an appointment as quickly as possible. 

But since it was the weekend, and then Columbus Day Monday, you would decide to try and handle the problem without medical intervention by going to the pharmacy to look for Polysporin Eye/Ear Drops on the advice of a friend. So when you asked the pharmacist where to find these magical drops, she might raise an eyebrow and tell you that you are so very, very stupid these drops are not available without a prescription. So you might swear loudly under your breath about the frustrating American system that requires a prescription for everything besides bandaids. 

With no other options you would give in and call the doctor’s office, hoping they might be open, only to be foiled by the medical office’s answering service and the less than perky voice on the phone. You might feel that it would be wrong to ask to speak to the ER doctor on call as conjunctivitis is not an emergency so much as a call to disinfect with ever-increasing hysteria an semi-urgent matter. So you would agree to have the nurse who can phone prescriptions into the pharmacy call you. 

When the nurse calls, you might be surprised to learn that, while she agrees that your son probably has pinkeye, the doctor’s office will not allow her to call in a prescription for such a young child. You might wonder out loud why the HELL you have been told that this nurse could call in prescriptions to pharmacies when she is neither prescribing, nor phoning pharmacies. And you might shriek wildly about ask yourself why the receptionist bothered to offer you this option when he must have known that she would be unable to help as he asked your son’s age.

Not that it’s happened to me, but I think it would be annoying. 

If you need me, I’ll be snuggling up to a gallon of bleach.