Pharmageddon

Did you ever have a friend who tempted you to do bad, and you let them influence you despite knowing that the consequences would be dire? I have such a friend - except that they tempt me to do good! When I received a request to help Mr R with his medicine collection (which didn't fit my schedule), I was doing a decent job trying to ignore it for a couple of hours. Then my do-good lobbyist stepped in and made me realise that Mr R's task probably doesn't fit anyone else's schedule either. I was sold.

To not fully outsource the responsibility for my most senseless mission sign-ups, I have to admit that breaking my "no missions during lunchtime on workdays" rule became so ordinary that I had to up my game and add "on busy days" to the clause.

I signed up to help Mr R on Friday at lunchtime, only to find out the night before that I received an invite to an urgent meeting at the time of the mission. My desperate plea to reschedule the task was promptly sorted out by Becky who contacted Mr R and saved me from loss of face.

It was my first mission involving drugs, so I knew it was going to be interesting. I gave myself under 70 minutes to complete the whole assignment. So I had to run, run fast. Had I known the UK's prescription system, I would save 10-15 minutes... When I arrived at Mr R's, he expected me to already hand him his medicine. Apparently, all I needed to collect the drugs was his name, and not some kind of paper prescription (yes, I was that ignorant). I had passed by his pharmacy when running to the task but at that time I still didn't have that crucial piece of information which was Mr R's secret last name. In retrospect, I choose to think that had I called him, I wouldn't hear his name properly on the phone.

The collection part of the task was not exciting at all. There was one person in the queue in front of me and I overheard them confirming their address, so there were no surprises for me in that matter. There was a secret bonus task included in my mission, which was to buy Mr R apple juice, which I did. Mr R was very grateful and surprised that I decided to go beyond the remit.

Without the additional chit-chat that neither Mr R nor I are fans of, I raced back to my home office, audaciously meandering between traffic and inhaling hot stagnant air rich in exhaust fumes. I arrived at my HQ two minutes after my planned time, covered in sweat and dust from the A40 head to toe. The world didn't end, and no one missed me much this time. The Pharmageddon has been postponed until further notice.