Critical Path

Customer: Hello, what do you sell here?
Me: That depends who you are exactly
Customer: Me? Oh I'm just a middle aged woman with the usual mild anxieties.
Me: Oh well then I sell pills and natural herbal remedies that can redress the imbalances behind numerous health problems.
Customer: So medicine then.
Me: If you like, yeah in a manner of speaking. How about you call it the alternative to medicine.
Customer: Alternative Medicine! Brilliant! I've just realised that this is exactly what I'm after, I don't trust Big Pharma.
Me: Here you go then, thank you, come again.

Visitor: Hello, what do you sell here?
Me: Well that depends on who you are exactly.
Visitor: Me? I'm a representative of the regulatory agency that ensures that medicines are tested to see if they're harmful or if they even do what they're claimed to do.
Me: Really that's fascinating I was just talking about how these large multinational drugs companies need someone to keep them in check.
Visitor: So what are these rows and rows of pills you're selling?
Me: Just food.
Visitor: Really and you're not selling them as medicine.
Me: Medicine? Can't think where you'd get that sort of idea. Do I look like a doctor?
Visitor: Well you're wearing a white coat and standing in front of shelves and shelves full of pills and preparations with "traditionally used in the treatment of eczema" and the like printed on them.
Me: No I'm just a grocer. That's just ancillary information about the history of our foodstuffs.
Visitor: Foodstuff shaped as pills?
Me: Like Tic Tacs yummy.
Visitor: And they're safe are they?
Me: All natural!
Visitor: Natural like this combination of 101 vitamins and minerals.
Me: Isolated from natural sources.
Visitor: By a company owned by Roche pharmaceuticals?
Me: Whatever, it's all natural.
Visitor: And if you think that answers the safety question I've got a belladonna milkshake with your name on it.
Me: No thanks I'm on the Atkins.
Visitor: Plate of fugu prepared by an unlicensed amateur then?
Phone: Ring! Ring!
Me: Hang on I just have to get that, it's my supplier... Hello? Uh huh!... Uh huh? Yes he is.... Funnily enough they want to speak to you.
Visitor: Me? erm.. Hello?... Yes... What? wait a minute, how much! Oh my giddy aunts! OK then Thank you. <Hands Phone back>
Me: All your questions answered?
Visitor: Yes thank you, you're clearly out of my jurisdiction, I can't regulate food. I'll be heading off then. It seems I've got another appointment anyhow.