Sciencemadness Discussion Board

An odd customer...

indigofuzzy - 11-7-2007 at 21:54

I hope this isn't inappropriate here...

I work for a local pharmacy, stocking, cashiering, and developing photos. Anyway, the other day, a woman came in and purchased $83 USD worth of Ibuprofen tablets. (this amounts to several then of grams worth of ibuprofen, iirc) Anyway, this raised a bit of a red flag with me, and I was wondering what on earth someone would be using that much ibuprofen for?

(The possibility does exist that she had some kind of chronic pain and was stocking up, or that she was donating it all to a charity, or something totally benign like that. In fact, i hope that's what she was up to... but I still wonder...)

chochu3 - 11-7-2007 at 23:20

Who cares what she does with them, as long as she can't make a nuke out of them I wouldn't care.

YT2095 - 12-7-2007 at 00:01

perhaps her Husband ordered her to buy them as he`s tired of the "not tonight dear, I`ve got a headache" excuse :D

not_important - 12-7-2007 at 04:05

What would have been more useful than the sales amount would have been how many bottles of how many tablets. A place I worked at stocked their first aid stations with supplies bought locally, they would have bought 10 bottles to fully stock them. Saying how much they spent means nothing, given shipping costs to the Moon that could have been 5 tablets.

There's not much illegal you can do with ibuprofen, except an attempt to kill someone through long term high doses, or outright acute OD. There are a lot easier and effective to kill someone than ibuprofen OD.

Sauron - 12-7-2007 at 04:29

My wife has rheumatoid arthritis and takes two 400mg ibuprofen tablets twice a day on doctor's advice.

(Here the brand name is Brufen.) While ibuprofen is not the world's most benign NSAID (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug) it is a lot more benign than the ONLY approved alternative in Thailand which is methotrexate. Ugh.

So my wife takes 1.6 g Brufen a day. If your customer is a RA sufferer then several tens of grams could just be a 2-3 week supply.

RA is pretty common, unfortunately.

quicksilver - 12-7-2007 at 05:58

Who cares what she is doing with them? Personally I don't play policeman with the public....just a little quirk of mine. What if someone were to see you buy 1000 DVD's and determines that you are pirating some video, etc? ....Make your life a living Hell because they were "suspicious" and cost you money, heartache, etc..... I actually don't mean to sound nasty but give the junior G-man stuff a rest. We have entirely too many people snooping and pooping in other people's lives. What if that "red flag" made someone with rheumatoid arthritis have to go through all sorts of bullshit because of suspicion? Some person may be suffering pain and then some "community-minded" person makes a command decision that they need to be investigated....Jesus, if there is "civic" sin, putting your nose into other's lives is certainly one of them.

indigofuzzy - 13-7-2007 at 08:46

Let me add, I only asked out of curiosity. I had no intention of calling any "authorities" in about this lady, as I'd much prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt, and believe she's treating arthritis, or stocking a first aid cabinet, etc.

BTW, there were roughly 12 bottles. 4 small (20 or 30 tablets), 4 medium (50 tablets), 3 or 4 large(100 tablets) and one huge(300 or so) milligrams per tablet not know for sure.

Also, I'm sorry to have come across as one of those suspicious types.

Sauron - 13-7-2007 at 09:48

I don't think you need to apologize for your curiosity.

You weren't pointing any fingers.

As mentioned above, ibuprofen is not a substance to be much concerned about anyway.

I pointed out one plausible explanation; there may be several others.

Curiosity is nothing to be ashamed of.

indigofuzzy - 14-7-2007 at 01:35

Thank you again, Sauron. :cool:

donlaszlow - 4-8-2009 at 10:19

good one YT2095 :D

kclo4 - 4-8-2009 at 11:05

Quote: Originally posted by donlaszlow  
good one YT2095 :D


This was a thread last active in 2007. You brought it back to comment on a joke?
Am I missing something?

IrC - 4-8-2009 at 21:01

"What if someone were to see you buy 1000 DVD's"

Actually this could be suspicious. Anyone remember the plutonium reactor built from alternating layers of plastic disks and Pu sheet disks? It was the most amazingly simple reactor I ever saw.

kclo4 - 5-8-2009 at 10:35

Sounds a bit like a hyped up story, do you have a reference or article on it?
Personally, I'd buy blank CD's for that. :)

IrC - 6-8-2009 at 00:34

No doubt the metal layer would mess up the mean free path. Do not remember the name of the book it's been a quarter century but the complete design with all specs and dimensions was in a hardcover book (quite legit but so rare I looked for years and could never find a copy for me) on a college library shelf in Phoenix. Was a book on reactor design showing the details of several working reactors. IIRC the one I mention was for a thermionic generator.

I imagine by now it is floating out past Pluto or thereabouts.

Forgot to mention but they used thin plexiglass disks in stacked layers for moderation not DVD's which were still future science at the time. Just thought it was funny when that 1,000 dvd comment was made as to how close quicksilver was to reality on the "anything can be suspicious" idea.


[Edited on 8-6-2009 by IrC]