The author's iPhone, clad in its new case: "I do have an iPhone, a wonderful gadget that can tell me what drug stores are near my house ..."

Happily, I was not sick enough to stay very long, so I was kicked to the curb on Saturday afternoon, clutching a prescription for oxycodone. [No, that’s not a typo – it’s the generic version of OxyContin.]

I need the stuff for my stomach pain, which – for reasons the UM docs could not quite explain – has lingered past any sign of inflammation that can be detected by a CT scan or in my bloodstream.

I asked the nurse who checked me out whether I could get the meds at any pharmacy, thinking that perhaps high-octane opiates are reserved for hospital dispensaries. “Well,” she said, “that’s why you have a prescription.”

Yes, but filling a prescription on a Saturday night is not so easy. There are no fewer than four stand-alone pharmacies within a mile radius of my house on the West Side – five if you count the one inside Kroger’s. I struck out at three of them.

First I tried the CVS on West Stadium, which a few years ago abandoned a perfectly serviceable store in the strip mall on West Liberty, across from the Ann Arbor Animal Hospital, for a larger space half a block away. Company bean counters must have justified the expense of this move with data showing they can sell more stuff in more square feet. But they don’t sell prescription meds at 5:55 p.m. on a Saturday night, because the pharmacists go home at 6, and five minutes isn’t enough time to fill a pill bottle and process the necessary paperwork.

There’s a brand new Walgreens on Jackson Avenue, just a few blocks away. Their business plan for capturing a slice of the west side medicine market does not, apparently, include offering more service hours than the competition: Walgreens pharmacists also go home at 6 p.m. on Saturdays. It’s the same story across the street at Rite Aid, in the north corner of the Westgate lot.

At this point, I was about ready to give up, with grudging admiration to the pharmacists’ guild for ensuring their members don’t have to work on Saturday nights. My sore – but not inflamed – stomach, I reasoned, could probably last until morning. But I was headed north anyway, so I made one last try at Village Pharmacy II, in the Maple Village mall across from the Veterans Memorial Park softball fields.

This shop – the only locally-owned business in the bunch – has pharmacists on duty until 9 p.m. I dropped off my prized painkiller script, and decided to celebrate with a bag of M&M’s on the way out. A friendly saleswoman directed my attention to a small display of homemade baked goods, explaining that proceeds benefit the Peace Neighborhood Center and Food Gatherers, two very fine local charities.

For a measly buck, I picked up two chocolate chip cookies and a brownie. I felt well satisfied for my one dollar investment, but it got better – a lot better. “Just a minute,” said the saleswoman. “I’ve got a gift bag for you.”

She asked if I had an iPhone, and iPod, or a Zune. I do have an iPhone, a wonderful gadget that can tell me what drug stores are near my house, update my stock portfolio, track the weather in Botswana and do all sorts of other tricks. But it is a lousy phone, dropping calls as if it were an outfielder on the 1963 Mets.

What’s worse, because I am a cheapskate, I have the 3G version – which set me back $99, much more than I’ve ever spent for a phone. Since the more expensive 4G version drops even more calls than the 3G – and was given a dreaded “not recommended” tag by Consumer Reports – Steve Jobs has grudgingly offered a free case to all of the non-cheapskates who shelled out $199 or $299 for the 4G. This is supposed to cut down on dropped calls.

But the Apple empire has not extended the same largesse to its less free-spending customers. Lucky for me, Village Pharmacy II has stepped into the void. In exchange for my $1 donation, I was handed a green reusable grocery bag stuffed with goodies, including:

• A nifty-looking red and black Belkin silicon sleeve for my iPhone [available online for prices ranging from $9.99 to $30.16, plus shipping];
• A free half-hour [or half-off one hour] hot tub soak at The Oasis [worth $20 or $25, depending on which day you go];
• A bottle of Absopure Spring Water, marked to commemorate the Sept. 4, 2010 re-dedication of Michigan Stadium;
• Three sample packets of Topricin [a homeopathic “pain relief and healing cream”];
• Two sticks of really awful-looking Gilliam Stick Candy [Cotton Candy and Strawberry flavors];
• A package of “Decorated Stationary” marked at $2.99 [but probably not a great seller because it mismatches “15 Decorative letters” with “10 Coordinating Envelopes”];
• Seven really bad greeting cards [“With Love Aunt and Uncle … Happy Anniversary!”] marked for sale at prices ranging from 50¢ to 75¢;
• A Village Pharmacy II/Dexter Pharmacy blue rubber bottle opener.

Quite a haul – not counting the bag itself, also worth at least 99¢. By the time I came back to pick up my pain meds, I was shamed enough to overcome my inner cheapskate and drop all my small bills – about eight bucks worth, I think – into the Peace Neighborhood Center/Food Gatherers donation jar.

I’m still way ahead on this transaction – and I haven’t even been to The Oasis yet.

My teen-aged daughter has been bugging me for a while to shop at Village Pharmacy II, instead of the nearby chain stores. This argument, it is safe to say, is now over. Also, my stomach is feeling better.

About the author: Roger Kerson is a media consultant at RK Communications. He serves on the board of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority.

Jeremy Canfield and Sergio Mendez of the tech start-up Phonagle study their iPhones as they search for virtual game pieces in Ingalls Mall during the art fairs on Thursday. (Photo by the writer.)

Sergio Mendez was meandering through the art fairs crowd in downtown Ann Arbor. Walking down Washington toward Main Street, Mendez saw something worth picking up. It was the left arm – just the left arm – belonging to a guy he knows, Eric Garcia. So Mendez  grabbed it and put it in his backpack.

That left arm wasn’t some sculpture in the art fair. But no worries, it also wasn’t Garcia’s literal left arm. It was a virtual arm, part of a multi-player iPhone game that Mendez and Garcia are developing, along with their colleagues at Phonagle, Jeremy Canfield and Ben Malley.

Phonagle LLC is a tech start-up. This week they’re using the art fairs as the setting to test out the game they’re developing. The object of this game: Find and collect virtual objects set up around the city – this version included their own virtual body parts.

At their downtown office in the basement of Tally Hall, Mendez explained that they intended to blend the online and offline worlds with their game. It’s meant to become a part of players’ daily lives, something they do while hanging out at a coffee shop or walking from place to place on the street.

Thursday afternoon was the first test  for the game. After gathering at the entrance to their office building on Washington Street, the Phonagle members split up, with Mendez and Canfield functioning as a team and Malley and Garcia striking out in their own directions. The Chronicle shadowed Mendez and Canfield to see how the game would play out.

Jeremy Canfield and Sergio Mendez of the tech start-up Phonagle look for virtual body parts on the Diag while doing a test run of their multi-player iPhone game on Thursday. (Photo by the writer.)

Canfield explained that they had applied Photoshop filters to photos of themselves,  then digitally sliced up those photos and scattered the pieces around the city, with a concentration on the art fairs. Each player started out with the torso from his photo. Rule of the game for this test:  First person to find his head, arms and legs, and then reconstruct his photo would win.

Before heading out, Canfield and Mendez studied their iPhones. Using their built-in GPS capability, the phones displayed maps of the downtown area. A blue dot indicated the current location of the player. Question marks on the map indicated body parts that were virtually located within four blocks or less of the blue dot. Players could “pick up” body parts by being within about 40 feet of them.

So when Mendez picked up Garcia’s left arm, it was because he’d gotten within 40 feet of it. As the arm appeared on the screen of his iPhone, he explained that players can also trade body parts, making them “jump” from one phone to the other with a downward motion of the player’s arm. That means players in the game can pick up each other’s parts and use them to bargain for bits of their own bodies.

Mendez decided to continue toward another question mark at the intersection of Liberty and Main, while Canfield went after another nearby piece. It was slow going through the crowd on Liberty. Art fair visitors lingered around the booths, looking at wooden carvings of animals and beaded jewelry. The sun was blazing, and the scent of ice cream, sunblock and hot dogs mingled in the summer air.

Mendez eventually made his way to Main, where he found Malley’s left arm.

“I’m going to pick it up in any case, so I have trading power,” Mendez said.

Canfield returned with one of his arms and one of Malley’s. As the two of them meandered back down Liberty in their quest for more body parts, Canfield noted that the art fairs didn’t seem like the best venue for the game. Players need to move quickly to gather their pieces before others do, but the fair clogs the streets and slows the gamers’ progress.

And the players might want to stop and see the art, too.

“You’re torn because you kind of want to look at the exhibits,” Canfield said.

Despite their need for speed, Canfield and Mendez soon got waylaid at a booth for Paradise Island Gourmet Popcorn. The plastic containers with free samples of cheddar, strawberry and bacon-flavored popcorn drew them in. Soon they were munching handfuls of Jamaican BBQ and taking out their wallets to actually buy a couple bags of the bacon-flavored stuff.

“Back to the game,” Canfield announced as they left the booth, popcorn in tow.

The Phonagle duo wandered the crowded, sunny streets down State Street. They walked through Ingalls Mall, while the Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” emanated from a nearby tent. Canfield forged ahead, scrutinizing his iPhone’s screen, while Mendez paused to study the menu at a booth serving Mediterranean food. No question marks showed up on their maps.

“Those guys have picked everything up,” Mendez said of Malley and Garcia.

Sergio Mendez (left), Jeremy Canfield and Ben Malley of the tech start-up Phonagle discuss possible revisions to their multi-player iPhone game in their office after testing the game out during the art fairs on Thursday. (Photo by the writer.)

After traversing North and South University and the Diag with no luck, Mendez and Canfield headed back to Liberty. On the way there, they discussed possible revisions to the game.

They agreed that they should program in “backpack limits,” allowing one player to pick up only five or six pieces at a time. Canfield also proposed that they include hints on the map, if a player isn’t close enough to even see any of the pieces as question marks. Arrows pointing in the direction of the pieces (and even telling the player the number of pieces in that direction) could keep the game’s participants from getting stuck.

Canfield also mentioned adding art fair trivia to the game, so players have to gather information and can’t “just pick pieces up.”

“What is the item in booth 74 that looks like the ocean?” Canfield gave as a potential clue.

The Chronicle first encountered Phonagle members in our report on RPM-10, an entrepreneur internship program sponsored by the University of Michigan College of Engineering Center for Entrepreneurship and RPM Ventures. The 10-week program gives student entrepreneurs funding and office space for the summer. Canfield, Malley and Garcia attend the U-M School of Information; Mendez is a recent graduate.

Back in their office an hour and a half after the start of the game, Garcia greeted Mendez and Canfield with a triumphant grin.

“I think I win,” Garcia said. He revealed that he’d picked up 15 of the 20 pieces in the game, not including the torso he started out with. Mendez and Canfield collected four pieces (not counting their torsos) …  and 4 bags of popcorn. Malley collected 1 game piece … and a Starbucks beverage.

Even though he’d retrieved the most pieces, Garcia didn’t have all of his own body parts and therefore couldn’t reconstruct his photo. No one had officially won.

“Ok, we do now know we need backpack limits,” Canfield said. “But there’s also something else missing. It can’t be just a game of speed.”

Garcia called the game “really fun,” since he consistently found new question marks on his map to hunt down. It wasn’t as fun for the others, however. Canfield said they needed to fix the game so players wouldn’t log on and see an empty map if there were no pieces around.

“Every time you enter, there should be something there,” Canfield said.

Based on the test run, Canfield said the team will revise the game. They also plan on recruiting students to test it out sometime soon.

Even though the game had some glitches, the afternoon wasn’t unsuccessful.

“I have bacon popcorn now,” Canfield said. “I’m happy.”