Great News! I May Get To Save My Feet, Or At Least One Of Them

Simply by sacrificing a hand or two. Regular readers my remember my earlier post about how after a particularly suck-ass day at work, I was admiring the entrepreneurial can-do spirit of a man in Mississippi who was looking to raise, by my math, around $2 million by cutting off his feet live on webcam and charging people to watch. Alas, it can be tough out there for a small businessman, and the plan was never carried out. I think the guy's big mistake was in striking out on his own, and not getting under the protective umbrella of corporate America. Turns out while going through my annual statement of benefits from my employer, I've discovered I'm covered for $250,000 of "accidental death and dismemberment insurance." OK, the death part is definitely out, and 250k is a ways short of 2 million, but hey, the potential rewards as well as the potential risks are always smaller when you go corporate, and I'm thinking 250k would be enough to serve as a launching pad away from the soul crushing life behind the pharmacy counter. Turns out there are several ways to get the full payout and still live. Here they are and my thoughts on each:

1) Loss of both hands or both feet or sight in both eyes:

Hmmm....not too sure about this one. Seems a little too close to what that dude in Mississippi was trying to pull off, and if I lost both eyes I wouldn't be able to see hot chicks anymore. Think I'll pass .

2) One hand and one foot:

Now this one has possibilities, especially if you could stagger the sides of the missing hand and foot. That way you could still hold a walking stick or cane of some sort on the side where your foot used to be.

3) Speech and hearing in both ears:

If it were just speech, this would be a no brainier, as it would make it possible to live out my life-long dream of never talking to anyone ever again. Coupled with hearing though might be a problem. I've just discovered the kick-ass sounds of John Coltrane and want to see what else might be out there in the world of jazz. Wonder if I might be able to substitute loss of a hand or foot.

4) Quadriplegia:

This one confuses me. I always thought Quadriplegia was one of the Who's better albums, and I mean, even if you didn't like it, I hardly think it could be considered a disability. This might have something to do with being deaf, dumb and blind and acquiring an ability to sure play a mean game of pinball. I'll have to do more research into this one.

5) Either hand or foot and sight in one eye:

We might have a winner here. I'm thinking a foot, so I'd still be able to type, I'm closing one eye while banging away at the keyboard right now, and it seems very doable. Especially if it means 2,500 benjamins in the bank.

The question now of course is, what kind of accident cuts off a foot and one eye? The devil is always in the details, but a few more workdays like today and I will surely launch a full scale effort to find out.

"Authorized Generics"=A Screwing For You

A quick follow up to my earlier post regarding the skulduggery that goes on between Big Pharma and little pharma and their conspiracies to keep generic meds from the market. Today we hear by way of the trade magazine Pharmacy Times of yet another ingenious way that Big Pharma has to ensure the maximum amount of money is transferred from you to them. First a little background. The FDA has a "first across the line" incentive for generic med applications, meaning that the first company to get it's application approved gets 180 days exclusive marketing rights, essentially a temporary monopoly on the sale of any alternative to the brand name med. Anyone out there see the loophole yet? It works like this. Big Pharma sets up a subsidiary to apply for a generic approval for the parent companies med, and since daddy company is already making the stuff, it would seem that baby company might have a bit of an inside track to get it's application approved first. When it does, it happily sells it's product for a little bit less than brand name daddy, for 6 months, when it invariably loses interest in the product as the real generic companies start to manufacture and sell the med at the price the free market determines.

Ingenious. I'll give them that. I just wish they would turn the brainpower involved into researching out how to exploit the rules into maybe researching something like hmmmmm...cancer?

Pavlov's Dog, Doctor Shoppers, and Right Wing Full Of Shit Gasbags.

The addict is a fact of life for those of us in the profession. When you work in a room full of drugs, you will undoubtedly have to deal with people who desperately want to get at those drugs. Someday I hope to turn this situation to my advantage though, as I posted earlier here. Until that day though, I am resigned to endless inquires from customers calling 7 days in a row to ask the exact day they can get their Vicodin refilled, excuses as to how the Soma got "lost", and "filled at other pharmacy" rejects from addicts on a budget who are trying to save a few bucks by using their insurance card for the 3 different narcotic prescriptions from 3 different doctors being filled at 3 different pharmacies. (sometimes I want to tell them that they were soooooo close to pulling it off, that if they just would've paid cash they would have gotten away with it) Back when I worked the late shift for a big box chain I remember a customer who would wait patiently in the designated patient area until midnight the day he was due for a refill. He knew when the magic hour had come because a tone would sound over the in-store radio system signaling the new day. Thing is, this customer had never been given the scoop as to what the tone was, he figured it out all on his own and got to the point that as soon as he heard it, he would get up and march zombie-like to the counter. I wondered sometimes what would happen if we played the tone for him sometime at 2 in the afternoon. Betcha he would have done the zombie march.

I'd be willing to bet though, that I'd be hard pressed to find a colleague out there who had a customer as maxed out as the one I read about the other day:

a prescription for 50 tablets of Lorcet was filled at the Zitomer Pharmacy on Madison Avenue in New York. The tablets were to be taken at a rate of two a day, and at that pace the prescription should have lasted 25 days. Three days later, a prescription was filled at the same pharmacy for another 50 tablets. A third prescription for 96 tablets of Norco was filled about the same time at the Lewis Pharmacy in Palm Beach, according to the court documents.

But wait, that's not all....

Prosecutors previously had said... received about 2,000 painkillers, prescribed by four doctors over six months, at a pharmacy near his Palm Beach mansion.

I don't know about my colleagues out there.....but you try shit like that at my store and you will be shown the door with my foot making contact with your ass.

Of course in this case It would have been the ass of a personal assistant.....or maybe a maid, as the master addict in this case is no other than right wing gasbag Rush Limbaugh, professional purveyor of pearls of wisdom such as:

"Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. And the laws are good because we know what happens to people in societies and neighborhoods which become consumed by them. And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up."
-- Rush Limbaugh. October 5, 1995 show transcript.

Wow, so we can all assume Rush did the honorable thing by taking his punishment like a man, right? Hmmmmm....let's let the Washington Post clue us in:

The charge will be dropped in 18 months, said his attorney, Roy Black, provided that Limbaugh continues treatment for drug addiction, as he has for 2 1/2 years. According to an agreement with the Palm Beach County state's attorney's office, Limbaugh also must pay $30,000 to defray the costs of the investigation, as well as $30 a month for his supervision.

$30 a month? Wow, I don't think I could say it any better than Rush himself:

"What this says to me is that too many whites are getting away with drug use, too many whites are getting away with drug sales, too many whites are getting away with trafficking in this stuff. The answer to this disparity is not to start letting people out of jail because we're not putting others in jail who are breaking the law. The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them and send them up the river, too."
-- Rush Limbaugh. October 5, 1995 show transcript.

The whole treatment thing doesn't look like it's off to a good start either, as the first step in overcoming an addiction is admitting you have a problem. This from the Post though:

"Mr. Limbaugh and I have maintained from the start that there was no doctor-shopping, and we continue to hold this position," Black said in a statement.

"Doctor Shopping" would be defined as getting multiple prescriptions from multiple doctors, kinda like this:

In court documents, investigators connected Limbaugh to 19 prescriptions for the drugs Lorcet, Norco and hydrocodone called in between April and August 2003. The prescriptions were issued by doctors in New York, Florida and California.

Do you need any more evidence he holds the public, and his listeners in particular, in contempt? I have more respect for the tone man customer, at least he wasn't pretending to be something he clearly wasn't.

You can read the whole Post Article here:

I'm Shaking My Ass In A Happy Dance This Morning....

....kinda like Snoopy in Peanuts, except I'm not sure if Snoopy actually shook his ass, but I digress.

What's given me happy ass today is this story from the Republican culture of corruption file. The news of crooked conservatives has been flying so fast and thick lately that the case of Lester M. Crawford is hardly getting any notice. When I saw his name next to the words "criminal inquiry" though, a warm, happy, smile broke out across my face, as it should across the face of any woman who doesn't want to submit to government-sponsored vagina inspections and anyone who cares about the integrity of science.

Lester is the former head of the FDA, and the force behind the denial of a move of Plan B, the "morning after" pill, to over the counter status. I posted earlier on his bullshit reasons here, but to give a quick recap, the FDA overruled its own subcommittee which said that Plan B should be OTC, citing "safety concerns" in selling the drug to younger teens. Two reasons why this was significant:

1) The political appointees that run the FDA almost NEVER overrule the scientists on their subcommittees.

2) There is no scientific evidence that would indicate any special need for concern for the safety of younger women using the med. None. Zero.

So it would seem Lester was simply too much of a puss to admit that he was imposing his morality on the rest of the country. People like that get stuck in my craw. I wish bad things upon them. Which is why these words were like Christmas in May:

Dr. Lester M. Crawford, the former commissioner of food and drugs, is under criminal investigation by a federal grand jury over accusations of financial improprieties and false statements to Congress, his lawyer said Friday.

Financial disclosure forms released by the Department of Health and Human Services showed that in 2004 either Dr. Crawford or his wife, Catherine, had sold shares in companies regulated by the agency when he was its deputy commissioner and acting commissioner. He has since joined a Washington lobbying firm, Policy Directions Inc.

The criminal investigation was disclosed at a court hearing in a lawsuit over the F.D.A.'s actions on the emergency contraceptive Plan B, a subject of bitter contention during Dr. Crawford's tenure as acting commissioner and commissioner. After the pill's maker, Barr Laboratories, applied three years ago to sell the pill over the counter, the agency repeatedly delayed making a decision on the application.

So if he hadn't been one of the Christian fascists imposing his God on us all, we wouldn't know he was also a crook. Priceless.

I suppose it would be better not to take joy in another persons suffering, that is in fact what the Jesus these people claim to follow would say. Hmmmmmmm.....nah.....this is too much fun. IN YOUR FACE LESTER!!!!!!! HAVE FUN IN THE POKEY!!! REMEMBER WHAT YOU PEOPLE SAY ABOUT CONDOMS NOT BEING THE WAY TO STOP HIV WHILE YOU'RE DOING YOUR TIME....BBBBBRRRWWWOOOHHHAAAAHHHHAAAHHHHAAA!!!!! Off to shake my ass some more......

He Demanded The Phone Number Of His Insurance Company......

....because he was going to "sue their pants off" for not covering his Viagra prescription.

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves.

Big Pharma And Little Pharma United......Against You

One of the things I don't miss from yesteryear are the daily instances of customers flying into a foaming at the mouth rage at the very thought of putting a generic medicine into their bodies. Back when I was a young drugnazi intern I was constantly talking people down from generic-induced screaming rants, people convinced I was part of some plot to rob them of their God given right to have a tablet that was slightly shiner and that came in a better looking box. It still happens occasionally, usually from people planning to sell their Vicodin who want to make sure the brand name is on the tablet so their customers know they're not getting ripped off, but for the most part, the screaming on this issue has died down considerably. I would like to think my years of patiently explaining to people that there was indeed no difference in the quantity of quality of chemical that gets put into your body are partly responsible. More than likely though it has to do with the ever-expanding gap in copays between brand name meds vs. generics. If your insurance covers the brand at all these days, you'll more than likely pay out the ass for it.

Here's the real deal scoop on generic meds. They're a win-mostly win situation for both your pharmacy and you. Your drugstore pays a hell of a lot less for generics wholesale and passes most of the savings on to you, meaning more money in the pocket of both you and your drugstore, and less for big pharma.....bbrrrrwwwwooohhhaaahhhhaaahhhhaaahhhhaaaaaa!!!!!! In your face GlakoSmithKline!!! Just like with any happy situation though, we should have known it would soon be under attack by giant corporations lusting after every last dollar they can suck up. And sure enough, we hear from the Washington Post this tale of a unique adventure in capitalism, companies getting paid to do nothing:

Brand-name drug companies have resumed the practice of slowing the sale of cheaper generic competitors by cutting deals that result in paying millions of dollars to makers of generic drugs while consumers continue to pay brand-name prices.

Generic drugs, which generally cost a fraction of the brand-name original, come to the market after the product's 20-year patent expires. The law and business practices governing patents can be complicated, however, and many generics become available only after successful court challenges.

When brand-name and generic companies agree to end their patent litigation, both generally benefit but the public suffers. The agreements allow the branded companies to maintain their patent exclusivity for longer periods, while the generic company receives money for, in effect, dropping its challenge. The generic companies also often enter into agreements to produce lower-priced versions of the brand-name company's drug at a predetermined date -- far in the future.

So it's still a win mostly win.

Win: Big Pharma

Mostly Win: Generic manufacturers, who get to live out the American Dream of getting large checks while sitting on their ass.

This time though, the in your face!!!! is directed at.....you.

You can read the whole article here.

Who Are The New York Nationals?

We all know literally who they are of course, the group of men who head out to the basketball court night after night to lose at the hands of the Harlem Globetrotters. What I'm really asking here is what makes these people tick? What is their motivation? Now I've never been to a Globetrotter game, but I'm assuming these Nationals have a certain amount of athletic talent. Enough that they weren't born with it, but rather had to earn it in year after year of honing basketball skills in the 'hood or the local YMCA, right through high school and college. The type of talent only a person driven to relentless pursuit of perfection can ever hope to obtain. And now they're professional losers. A laughing stock destined to be dribbled around, dunked over and humiliated in order to earn money to eat. I wonder if they ever secretly want to break free of their bondage and just put an ass-whooping on the Globetrotters that will have them crying for their momma. It can't be good to supress an urge like that. I worry about their mental health.

This Happened In America At The Beginning Of The 21st Century

Old lady comes up to the counter and asks a question. "I broke out in a rash and my doctor told me to get some Benadryl. Is this the right thing?"

Nothing unusual here. There are about 8,000 different types of Benadryl on the market, and if you're not a drug person and find yourself all blotchy and itchy, it's understandable you want to make sure you get the right thing. I answer this very question several times a week. If you find yourself in this type of situation in the future, look for the Benadryl Allergy in the pink box.

Which is exactly what the old lady had in her hand. Yay for her. When I told her that she indeed had the right thing she replied, "Well that's what the pharmacist at K-Mart said too, but since she was a woman, I thought I would ask again."

A woman was telling me that she didn't trust the advice of another woman. You've come a long way indeed baby.

The Quickest Way To Hurt My Feelings.....

....to really insult and humiliate me, is to say something like "oh, you look like a pharmacist." A recruiting postcard I got in the mail today will illustrate why. These two men evidently would like to be my boss, and they're pretty typical of the type of people you'll see at pharmacy conventions, in trade publications, and corporate meetings discussing how the company's new computer system will help us to spend more time with patients:


Studies have shown this picture to be a more effective contraceptive than the morning after pill.


I seriously hope I don't look anything like a pharmacist.

The Magic Translator Bell.

Nothing says "professionalism in medical service" quite like a drive through window, or at least that is the thinking of my employer. Actually, no, I'm wrong. My employer cares about professionalism only when it can add $$$ to the quarterly earnings statement, so given a choice between a dignified atmosphere and running through a few more paying customers by making the place feel like a McDonalds...yeah, you know which one they pick. For the most part I'm ok with it though, their prompt issuance of large paychecks making the annoyance of dealing with idiots too lazy to get out of their car a fair trade in my book. Not to mention it's usually the techs or cashiers dealing with it. This morning though I had a little stretch where I was minding the happy little pill room all by myself, and the dreaded drive through bell goes off. Now there are 2 bells associated with the driveway of suck. One a motion detector that goes off when you first pull up, and a second button you can push like a doorbell. We really love that second bell. Be sure to push it a lot, especially when you can clearly see that we're on the phone or helping someone else. So, car pulls up and immediately hits that second bell. We're off to a wonderful start. The following is a transcript of the conversation that followed.

Me: Hi, can I help you?

Customer: Something in Spanish my gringo ass doesn't understand. Followed by the customer reaching out and ringing the bell again. DING!

Me: No habla espanol. Un momento. (reaches for phone to call for translator)

Customer: Something in Spanish my gringo ass doesn't understand. DING!

Me into store paging system: "I need a Spanish translator to the pharmacy please."

Customer: Something in Spanish my gringo ass doesn't understand. DING!

Me: No comprendo. No habla espanol.

Customer: yadda yadda yadda.....blah blah blah.......DING!

Me: What are you doing with that bell?

Customer: at least 1 minute of something I don't understand.....DING!

Did he think the button was translating what he was saying? Maybe that it was some sort of recording device that captured his speech and held on to it until he hit the "send" button? By this time the phone rang and when I was done with the call, a translator had shown up and taken care of the customer, so I guess I'll never know. Dumb son of a bitch.