"Pharmacy, press 3"
Whereupon a normal person who wanted to talk to someone in the store's pharmacy would press 3, thinking it would connect them to the pharmacy.
Silly human. What you hear next is "For the pharmacy, press 1"
You see, at CVS you've gotta really want it. Because after this bit of idiotic redundancy, after you do everything the machine tells you to do, human contact will not happen anytime soon. After that weird gurgling sound, you're gonna be on hold. For a long time. You get no credit for doing what the machine wanted. You can try pressing 3 again to see if that will make the machine happy, but it's too late, all you'll hear is that oddly hypnotic piano bar music. I wonder how much CVS paid for that piano music. I wonder if they think that it's calming and therefore people who wait to talk to a human for 20 minutes will be less likely to explode in anger.
Sometimes when it's late at night I'll turn down the lights and call CVS on the speakerphone. That piano music sets just the right mood to end the day, and I know it will be playing long after I fall asleep. I think of it as just another ordinary miracle.
