CVS/pharmacy - Expect something extra annoying

I've had an increasingly negative view towards CVS pharmacies & drugstores. First off I hate the fact that they are just about everywhere around here. Aside from the occasional Rite Aid or Walgreens, the DC Metro landscape is littered with CVS stores. Heck, they are more abundant then Starbucks it seems. So basically they are the immediate "go to" option for health & hygene products, which frustrates me greatly.

One of things that has constantly bothered me about CVS, is the lack of consistency in their store layout. From the store to store, different kinds of products end up in different parts of the store. When you walk into other stores, usually you can automatically figure out where things are. Walmart or Target for example, it's an automatic process to find clothes or shampoo. All the stores are basically the same. Not with CVS. Just a couple weekends ago I'd bought some earplugs for my Lady to wear at the concert we were going to that evening. I found them next to eye care products in that particular store. However while we were on the road to the concert, my wife found out that she had in fact forgotten the earplugs. No problem, I'll just swing into one of the many CVS stores and pick up another pair. I roamed around forever trying to find those things, of course they weren't in the same spot or even paired with the same items. I finally asked an employee for help and he lead me to the far dark corner of the store in an area where the flurorescent light tube had blown out and showed me a little half shelf of ear products. This reveal was then paired with an "Yeah see their right here", like this was such an obvious location and I was idiot for missing it.

NUMBER TWO problem with CVS: Paying for items at a CVS is always painful. The lines are always slow, because their little card readers have to have the slowest network connection out of any retail establishment. It takes forever for them to process a purchase. Adding to this tension of a long wait is the nebulous rules regarding line formation. At some CVS stores there are 2 or 3 lines, one for each individual cashier while at others there is ONE big line sometimes stretching well back into the store. Now things really get tense when some tries to get around the system of the ONE big line by paying for their things at the Photo counter. I've seen more than one argurement erupt over that maneuver.

CVS just never operates like other places, it just boggles my mind and frustrates me because its come to the point we really don't have much of a choice around here.
They have such weird policies at CVS too. I bought a Starbucks gift card there for someone's birthday, and when I went to pay for it with my credit card I was told I had could only pay cash. I've bought gift cards and gift certificates for many years. I've NEVER been told I HAD to pay cash for the gift card. They are just so bizarre.

I don't have a clever finish for this entry. I could go on for days about other little experiences I've had at CVS but I've already eaten up plenty of time and page space as it is. I can't believe I'm the only one that feels like this towards this company's stores though. They suck to badly for me to be alone in feeling this way.