Monday, April 25, 2022

Microstory 1871: Soft Peddle

I’ve never done drugs in my entire life. I drink a little, just to kind of chill out at the end of the day, but I don’t like to party, or anything. Some of my customers have asked me how I can conduct business if I’ve never used the product myself, and I don’t think it’s too crazy that I don’t partake. A lotion salesperson probably hasn’t used every single type of lotion in the store; or perfume, or whatever. And caskets, what about caskets? Not a single casket dealer has ever used one of their own models. Or rather, they haven’t used it for its intended long-term purpose. I suppose there are maybe a few freaks out there who get down like that, and that’s what draws them to the industry. The way I see it, I don’t need to know what it feels like to take a pill of certain properties. I just need to understand my clientele, and what they’re looking for. My business came out of nowhere. I had a lot of emotional problems when I was young, and my parents had the idea to just throw mind-altering drugs at everything. I took this, and I took that, and I tried cocktail after cocktail. Nothing helped until I delved deep into my issues, and focused on getting better through traditional therapeutic techniques. But then I had all these pills left over that nobody—nobody—asked me to dispose of. I guess I was simply expected to take the initiative to drop them off at my local pharmacy. Well, I didn’t, so I just kept everything with me, and when I went off to college, I didn’t bother sorting them out. I grabbed all of my medicine, and threw them in the top drawer of my desk in the dorm. Some of it I still needed, like my allergy meds, generic over-the-counter pain management, and melatonin. But it was all in there, in the back, and one day, when a neighbor asked me if I had something for his headache, a business was born.

He saw what else I had, and told me I was crazy for just sitting on them. I could make some serious money if I started peddling it to other students. It wasn’t the most insane idea. I mean, a few of those things could really help them focus on studying, and taking tests. Still, I was hesitant, so I closed the drawer, and dropped it. The other guy didn’t drop it, though. He started spreading word around, and somehow, without me even making a single sale, people were starting to call me The Pharmacist. They were in such need, and I wasn’t, so who was I to stop them? They were all adults capable of making their own decisions, and if this was what they wanted, fine. I didn’t truly understand street value at the time, so I didn’t charge them very much, but I had so much volume, so I made a huge profit, because I didn’t pay for any of it myself. As time went on, word spread farther beyond the dorm, and across campus. I was the guy to go to if you were looking for a little help, and didn’t technically have some stuffy doctor to agree to it. By the time I ran out of my supply, I was approached by a real life drug dealer who wasn’t happy I was taking business away from him. I apologized, and said I wasn’t in it for the long haul, but he wasn’t hearing it. He said I had to go talk to Fartle. I didn’t ask him where Fartle got his nickname. Or the spider tattoos. Or the gun. Fearing for my life, I agreed to start selling for him, as long as I never had to sell anything that had to be injected or snorted. He was fine with that, so that’s what I did. I didn’t call myself a drug dealer until the first time I went to jail, and the judge made me say those words, or he would double my sentence. When I got out, I found myself free of Fartle, but I still felt compelled to sell. I’m too good at it, so I’ve been doing it for ten years. I regret nothing.

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