Sudafed Protocol

For the third day in a row I woke up with a cement block in my left sinus and an ice pick embedded in my left eye.  No amount of over the counter drugs hoarded in the house seemed to be making things better, so I did a silly thing and actually called for a doctor's appointment.  Lobsterman assured me that I would most likely get in a month from now... dead or alive.

Some masterful whining got me an appointment with some doctor at my usual clinic, not my usual doctor... but at that point I just wanted to see anyone that had a license to write a prescription, so in theory I could have just gone to any street corner in Baltimore, but Baltimore is such a hassle and you can never find parking.

Doctor appointment time came, and the guy pretty much told me I was out of luck.  I wasn't running a fever, therefore no infection, therefore no drugs.  He told me to suck it up, buy better over the counter drugs, and come back if I got worse.  Yep, and that's why I pay $350 a month for health insurance!

After I ripped his still beating heart out of his chest and showed it to him (ok, not really, but I did in my head), I ventured to the pharmacy for something stronger than what we currently had. 

This meant taking one of the little slips of paper with the picture of your drug of choice to the pharmacy, where they take your driver's license, run a back ground check on you, strip search and cavity check you, then tell you they only have the generic version of the "over the counter" drug of your choice.  FINE!  GIVE IT TO ME!

I bought the last bag of Cherry 3-muskateers, so this means that I can make cherry flavored meth in my bathtub had I not failed miserably at being a crack-ho (and yes, I know there's a difference between crack and meth, I didn't fail that miserably at being a crack-ho!)

A Rant **

** Because "OH MY FREAKIN GAH ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDING ME" has probably been used already.

Ok, so this rant will be about 15 different things that are actually all connected, in a bizarre kind of way.

I know someone who was at a CVS PHARMACY buying a sitz bath and a cane and the cashier actually asked for their last name to verify that the credit card they were using was actually theirs.

1. This assumes that a credit card thief is too incredibly stupid to read the credit card owner's name off the card.
2. If someone stole my credit card and all they were buying was a sitz bath and a cane... just let them get it.  Seriously, if they were desperate enough to steal my card and use it for that... they got some problems.

Coincidentally, the guy at the next counter was buying heartburn pills and got asked for his birth date... because apparently there's a new under aged heartburn relief gang?

At 7pm Saturday night, we had a prescription for Vicodin called in... for long time readers, you'll know that it wasn't for me because I can't even get Xanax, and I'm pretty sure I qualify for that.  I think I'll start a petition drive.  Throughout all of my myriad of strange issues (broke my foot in two places using a Wii, random cysts that I've all named popping up on my wrists, thumb problems from a car wreck) the only thing I get is Ibuprofen.

Now its not like we live in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere or anything.  We live like 10 minutes from Baltimore (pronounced Balmer) and a half hour from D.C. (Warshington, as my mom calls it) so its not like we commute by Yak and use smoke signals, so you would think it would be relatively easy to find an open pharmacy at 7pm on a Saturday.  I actually think it would be easier to find an open pharmacy on that time and day because that's generally when the drunks who say "Hey, watch this" do something stupid and need a prescription... but NOOOOO.  Its literally impossible to find a pharmacy open after 6pm on the weekends.

Now, let me clarify: an open PHARMACY.  Sure, CVS PHARMACY is open, and so it Rite Aid PHARMACY, but not the PHARMACY part, just the store.

Why bother?  To me, an emergency isn't running out of bread or hair dye.  I've never run frantically to a pharmacy for some late night hair bands or lip gloss, no matter what the weather forecast.  I'm pretty sure I can live without those items for a night, or at the very least GO TO ONE OF THE GAZILLION 7-11, WA-WA, QUICKSTOPS, ROYAL FARMS, GROCERY STORES, OR GAS STATIONS that are open and have this crap in them.  To me, an emergency is needing some guy to count out 20 vicodine to keep from writhing in pain over night.

IF YOU CALL YOURSELF A PHARMACY THEN KEEP THE PHARMACY OPEN WHEN THE STORE IS OPEN!!!

Better yet, if your Web site says you are open until 9pm HOW ABOUT YOU PUT IN BIGGER PRINT THAT YOUR FREAKIN PHARMACY CLOSES AT 6 SO SOMEONE DOESN'T GO SHLEPPING OUT AT 7PM ONLY TO FIND THE PHARMACY CLOSED!

Then, at 10am when the pharmacy opens, but your pharmacist calls in sick... when the person who got burned the night before calls to make sure you are open and have the prescription called in the night before ready and waiting, how about you just tell them the ETA of the replacement pharmacist instead of making the already irate customer play 20 questions:

Me: So... when will the replacement show up.
Rite Aid Moron (RAM): He's been called and he's on the way
Me: Is he flying in from Pakistan?
RAM: ???
Me: When do you think he'll get there?
RAM: He's on the way
Me: so... will he be there today, or perhaps next week?
RAM: Oh today!
Me (banging head against wall): roughly about what time today?
RAM: Oh... maybe like 11

So... now I wish I hadn't failed miserable with my new year's resolution: Become a Crack Ho.

At least I could have whipped up something in the bathtub using common household products.