A Wauwatosa pharmacist had one answer to a would-be robber who handed him a note demanding Oxycodone and saying he had a gun.

"Get the hell out."

While the pharmacist would later wonder whether that was the right thing to do – did the guy maybe really have a gun? – his gut reaction worked.

The crook got the hell out.

According to police reports:

At 3:14 p.m. last Sunday, employees of Swan Serv-U Pharmacy, 9130 W. North Ave., reported the attempted robbery.

The man had come into the store just before 3 p.m., closing time, and asked advice on an over-the-counter allergy medicine. The pharmacy clerk suggested a brand and set a package on the counter, whereupon the customer said he had to go out for his money.

He then came back and said he had left his money at home, not too far away, and wanted to go get it and come back.

The two employees still present locked the store, and the one who had spoken to the "customer" persuaded his colleague to stay around so that he wouldn’t be alone with the young man when he returned.

When he did come back, at 3:14, he knocked on the side door and was let in.

He went to the pharmacy counter and presented a note, which the pharmacist remembered as saying something like, “Don’t be stupid, I got a gun, give me all your Oxycodone IR 15-30 MG.”

The pharmacist said he did not see any gun, so he told the young man to “Get the hell out of here before I call the cops.”

The suspect grabbed the allergy medicine and a Men’s Health magazine and ran for the door, unlocking the deadbolt to get out.

The employee who had the most contact with the suspect described him as white, 23 to 27 years old, about 5-feet 7-inches tall, weighing about 240 pounds and wearing sunglasses, a blue hat, blue shirt and khaki shorts.

The other employee remembered him as having acne, the hat having “DC” embroidered on it and the sunglasses being thick-framed with a red skull and dagger design.

Swan Serv-U was robbed of Oxycodone in March in a case that later led to seven federal felony charges for a Milwaukee man implicated in that and a number of other pharmacy robberies for narcotics.