A Tale of Three Pharmacies

Our apartment is on Paraná between Corrientes and Lavalle and there's a pharmacy on each corner of the block. They make for convenient landmarks. Both old school pharmacies, meaning that there are a few display cases up front and then a counter, behind which stands a pharmacist. You have to ask him or her for whatever you want. This is helpful when you want advice about which medicine is best for your fever or dry skin. It's less fun if you want, say, condoms or Lice-B-Gone.



You can also pick up some old world goods. Many pharmacies here still sell bars of sulfur that are supposed to help with neck pain. According to lore, they "take the air out." When my friend Diego recommended that I use them, I kept thinking I was mistranslating something (usually a good assumption) because, well, I didn't have any air in my neck. But the old porteña wives would have you believe otherwise. Apparently when you pass the sulfur bars over your neck, they crackle, which is proof that they're working.



So I come back here three weeks ago and find that they've opened a new pharmacy just one corner block away, at Paraná and Sarmiento. Of course, it's a Farmacity, an ominous omen of the Buenos Aires to come. This is a chain that's spreading faster than spilled milk on a greased pig. They are completely modeled on US drugstores, with self-serve shelves and a small, discrete pharmacy in back. Notice how they wedged their anonymous flourescent lighting into a lovely old building. Of course I dislike them on principle because they're sucking the soul out of the city I love. On the other hand, I often shop there because it's so much easier. The Spanish word is hipócrita.

Happily, the old world hasn't sold all of its goats just yet. Yesterday on my very block I saw one of the local knife sharpeners, a young man riding a stripped-down bicycle with a grinder attached between the handlebars. He stops, props up the back wheel, shifts a lever, and uses the bike's gears to turn the grinder and sharpen whatever blunt tools you have on hand. And suddenly I'm back in the time of Dickens (by way of Oliver! naturally) hearing street-callers yowling "Knives! Knives to grind!"