I grew up in a small, very rural town in northern New Jersey. We spent most of our time outside of school playing with friends, swimming, fishing, and hiking and in the winter playing hockey on the lakes in the area.
At the time, we thought we were so bored, always complaining that there was nothing to do. But in retrospect there was PLENTY to do, and I’m glad I had a chance to do all those things when I was a kid.
Being such a small town, we had one post office, one bank, and one pharmacy. And this one pharmacy was your typical mom and pop store – a mix of everything you could want – plus prescriptions. This store existed, of course, before most of the major chain pharmacies started popping up.
What was interesting about this pharmacy was that, if you needed it, they would deliver you prescription to your door. Even in our little, rural, town the pharmacy would deliver your medicines to your front door – if you really needed them to. And, on a few occasions my mother took advantage of this service. Whether it was because she caught what I had, or couldn’t get my meds because the weather was too bad, I remember the pharmacist would show up in his rusty (and trusty) Ford Bronco with my prescription.
As the years went by that Bronco was replaced by a newer Bronco II which sat far out in the parking lot (can’t take up a customer’s spot close to the store!) and eventually disappeared as more pharmacies moved in to town and the cost of maintaining a delivery vehicle became too prohibitive.
Nowadays, of course prescriptions are delivered regularly to your door, especially bulk orders from mail-order houses and items from specialty pharmacies that require priority handling.
Of course, many pharmacies are offering drive-through service, or curb-side pickup – which helps those that can’t easily get into the store or don’t want to be exposed to germs.
Is the day coming when pharmacies will offer local delivery of “ordinary” prescriptions?
I think so.
If you look at how practically anything can now be delivered to your home – whether it’s something physical (prescriptions, food, auto parts, and mattresses) to non-physical (movies, music, documents) prescriptions will be next.
I also think that the reasons for this are two-fold. First, it’s just more convenient, a few clicks and your purchase is on its way. Second, I think people are just scared. Scared to catch the flu, and maybe more so, scared of violence.
In spite of all the advances we have made technologically, and how much we want to believe we are living in a civilized world, it’s my belief the world has become a more dangerous place – and most people are content to let everything be delivered to their front door. It costs the same, is easier, and you don’t get exposed to people, germs or their weapons. A win-win-win situation.
What’s next? I believe inevitably public education, where students go to a physical building for their classes will become a thing of the past. Many parents already home-school their kids and we have had on-line universities for a long while. Add the element of fear and the fact that schools aren’t constructed to keep kids safe (how many multi-story elementary schools, outside of cities, are there?) and that there is no way to really prevent an idiot with a gun shooting up a school and you have a situation ripe for “virtual” classes. No need to ever leave your house.
As always, let me know your opinion. In the meantime I’m going to order some food for delivery and see what I can watch on Netflix tonight.