Fix Gladys- August 7, 2002
Gladys is one of the two pharmacy technicians at the independent pharmacy I am working at in Jackson, North Carolina and her husband is dying of emphysema so naturally she isn’t herself and it is affecting her co-worker.
Deborah is Glady’s co-worker and partner in crime at the pharmacy all day, every day, and it has probably been that way for more years than I have been alive. To me they are the best type of friends because they make each other laugh, all day. I have no idea what they are talking about most of the time, and I am always laughing when I am around them. I feel like Deborah might know Gladys more than her own husband which is why it almost makes me cry when she asks me to fix Gladys. Well, I will start from the beginning, the boss man owner pharmacist is on vacation and Deborah and I had a heart to heart and of all the things it was my stupid learning disability that brought us together.
I have been trying to hide my learning disability my entire life for various reasons and the latest reason is that I saw a middle-aged white man on campus at UNC-CH that was supposed to help me deal with my learning disability but he looked me in the eye and said he had students with real problems, and I was wasting his time. I didn’t disagree with him and just got right on out of there and never saw the man again. It felt like every time I reached out for help, I had another white man telling me it wasn’t anything real to worry about. I even had one white man tell me during exam week in pharmacy school that if college was so stressful maybe I should just drop out and work at a grocery store. These were not just random men on the street, they were professionals who were getting paid to deal with people with things such as learning disabilities. Allegedly, they were specialists in their field. This white man condescending parade started in high school when I had one touch my yellow canvas Gap sneakers in front of my parents while delivering his assessment of me and say that I would be fine in college as long as I stayed away from math and science.
See, even he knew I wasn’t cute enough to get my Mrs. in college. Anyway, he felt comfortable saying just don’t even bother like this "professional" advice was supposed to solve everything. My high school brain never looked up from that bright yellow canvas sneaker for the rest of the time he was talking. I was furious. Chalk it up to high school rebellion but that is when I decided that all I would do was math and science when I got the chance. Fuck him. And that is exactly what I did which is why I am here in Area L trying to figure out how to be a pharmacist. For most of my life I knew my brain worked differently from my friends and I just thought it was because I was dumb. In elementary and middle school, I got the lowest grades and spent the most amount of time studying so to me that just meant I was stupid and that was that. Then I got tested in high school and when that old white man touched my shoe, he was telling me that yes, I am dumb in certain areas but in other areas I am not and so that equals a learning disability. So, I was partially right, I was only partially dumb.
Back to Deborah, one of her kids has a learning disability and she was on the phone getting the news and was upset about it and I decided to spill my beans. To be honest, after I got tested and was allowed certain accommodations starting in high school like extra time on tests, it was the best thing to ever happen to me academically which is what I told Deborah, and she looked relieved. It was a mostly positive experience, and I wanted to acknowledge that part and leave out all the white men who didn’t really help me. We bonded and it was the best day I had at the pharmacy, and I have my stupid learning disability to thank for it. Our bonding took up most of the morning and as we were leaving the back office this is when she asked me to fix Gladys.
The way my brain works is that I am thinking of one thing that leads to another and another and most of what I am thinking are things I have learned from magazines, movies, or books because that is where most of my life experience comes from and now I have some limited pharmacy knowledge for my brain to scan as well so all of this is just going on in my head as I am giving a blank stare to whoever is around me because I don’t share any of it out loud, not right away and probably not for several minutes, but I hoped she could tell, I was working on it.