Yes! I shall Review Waltham's CVS at long last! For here lies the greatest mystery mankind has ever known: how can one innocuous-looking convenience store on the corner of Harvard and Main across the street from Hannaford be this Hellishly terrible? How can this one store be responsible for opening up all 7 of the Gates of Hades and releasing the foul, undead corpses of countless rapists and theives? How can one measly pharmacy/everyday items store wreak so much terrible, shockingly vile havoc on one small suburb of Boston--havoc which spills over into the Charles like blood, soaking everything everywhere with blood, blood, blood!!!
Try going in here at 12:24 a.m. on a Tuesday night in December, and buying popcorn, some Pringles and Diet Coke (for mixing with your Vanilla Vodka, of course). Here's what will undoubtedly transpire:
You will probably be under the influence of some type of chemical, so it stands to reason that whatever takes place after this point is not totally CVS's fault. Having said this, you will spend 8-12 minutes locating your popcorn, Pringles and Diet Coke (although you and your "influenced" friend will suddenly realize with great alacrity and surprise that Vanilla Vodka mixes much better with Cherry Dr. Pepper, and you will purchase this instead) and you will also grab some Reese's Pieces. Now, here's where things really start to heat up. You will go to the front of the store, where people usually pay, but something will alarm you. There are 12 employees behind the desk at the right for photo-development...but...there are no customers at 12:24 a.m. who desire this particular service. The only conclusion you can come to is that all the employees picked that general area to the right of the check-out to flock to, as though it were some kind of natural habitat. Another curious phenomenon you will notice is that all three check-out lanes will have very large, ostentatious signs in them that say "CLOSED: USE NEXT LANE". Now these signs are not very clean; it looks as though no one has washed them in years, and the interesting paradox is that when one tries to go to the next lane, one is met with yet another sign which says to go to the next lane and so on and so forth.
Now, to the left, you will notice that there are three SELF-check-out machines, and there is one rather stoned gentleman touching the screen in a perplexed manner as his toothpaste tube hangs out of the plastic CVS bag at his hip. He is trying to figure out what the computer lady is saying to him, but the computer-lady at the next self-check-out line is already talking, so there is this vast and profound echo or delay which not only renders what Computer Lady says incomprehensible, but causes, also, a deep and disturbing sense of existential nausea for whomever may be within hearing distance [i.e.-me]. Luckily, there is an older lady of color whose job it is to make sure that emergencies like the one in front of you are dealt with quickly and without incident, so as to expedite the purchasing process for the other customers who might want also to check out of the fucking CVS and get the fuck back home so they can drink. But no.
She ambles over, clearly exasperated, and pushes some buttons. At this point, you will venture the self-check-out yourself, and you will bravely march up to the machine. It tells you "IF YOU HAVE YOUR EXTRA-CARE CARD, SWIPE IT NOW!" She will keep on saying this. Then, after you have accidentally scanned your Pringles twice, and you don't know how to void this, because you do not work for CVS, nor have you ever considered it, and you just want to get out of here, this woman will come over and yell at you. Then, fed-up, you will ask her why there is no one manning the check-out lines. She will ignore you, and the computer lady will tell you to "TAKE YOUR RECEIPT", and you will notice that there are really only two of these self-check-outs, because the middle one is broken. It says on it: "OUT OF ORDER".
The only point I want to make here, is that this process will happen no matter what time you go in, so if you are, like, in a hurry to get to work, you can kiss your job goodbye. Although, I wonder if they're hiring? read more
