“Where is line for coffee, please?”

That’s a line from “Moscow on the Hudson,” in which Robin Williams plays a Russian who defects to the USA, and discovers, in America, you don’t stand in some line waiting until it’s your turn for the one available state coffee. Or, as Yakov Smirnoff might put it, “In America, coffee waits for you!” In the movie, Williams’ character ends up fainting once he sees the overwhelming assortment of coffees available to him.

I was thinking of that movie tonight, during my third hour of waiting for my prescription to be filled at my pharmacy. I had phoned in four days earlier to request a refill; a couple days later, yesterday, I had dropped by, only to wait about 2 hours to be told they were out of the medication but would have more today.

Then, I called the refill service, and was told the prescription was ready. So by the forty-five minute mark tonight, after watching the staff search for my “ready” prescription, along with those for another 7 waiting customers, I was ready to leave. I asked them to give me a call when they had something for me to pick up.

This is America, so my first thought was, competition—let’s try another pharmacy! Then, I realize, without wanting to, I already have tried most of them. I moved to my current pharmacy a few years ago, when the service at the local Rite Aid deteriorated to open shouting matches and security dragging away customers.

I moved to a Savon, which was better, and was also closer, so in a pinch I could easily go home and come back. My Savon had originally been a Thrifty Drug. Those don’t exist anymore. Neither do Savons, now in our region; they’ve been taken over by CVS, which is where my recent Wagnerian prescription adventures have been unfolding. I’ve been to Walgreen’s and waited up to an hour to buy film. It seems unlikely they’d be a faster alternative.

Two questions came to mind—what about our parents—yours and mine? What if I was in a condition where this wait comprised most of my waking day? And the other question—please, tell me the psychotics get better service.

To comfort myself, I went to a supermarket. For some reason, the gleaming aisles of food reassure me. There was no line for coffee, but there was a 15-20-minute wait for checkout. It’s up to you if you want to pay a dollar an ounce for summer raspberries—but how long should you have to wait for the privilege?

I’m not some guy advocating the “good old days.” In the “good old days,” folks would die at 55 of “natural causes.”

Make no mistake—the Soviet Union was a disaster by every measure—morally, financially, ethically—from the ethnic and political genocides of Stalin, through Chernobyl, through their “state-run media,” they managed to create the worst of both worlds—they removed the incentive that capitalism provides, and treated the working class to generations of misery at the same time.

Which makes me worry whenever our way of life starts to resemble theirs.

Whew. I got through this without even referring to FOX as “Pravda.”