Dear Republican Friends,
You don't want to fight this battle.
Especially once we contrast Obama's reaction to his preacher going off the deep end to what we have here:
If it comes down to which side has the craziest preachers, I am confident of victory.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Thursday, May 01, 2008
A Message From My Gardener José
First I must say I have much honor and pride.
When Señor Drugmonkey put my name on his poll of blogs I thought he meant to mock me. To rub it in my face that I work with my hands to make his landscape and not my brain. I tried to kill him two times. But yesterday while I was spreading manure around his carport, he called me inside to say he had something to show me. I had never been inside Señor Drugmonkey's condominium before, and I will never go inside again. But he showed me on his computador that people think I can write prescriptions for medicine better than nurses, toothmen, and those that assist doctors. People who went to school far longer than me and who have received many honors and awards in their school. I never thought when I came to this country 5 years ago I would ever have earned this much respect. I thank you all.
Sadly, I have had an encounter with La Migra which means I will be leaving soon. But I want to say before I go that I will never forget the people of the United States and the lessons that I have learned here. I will miss many things about this country, but the honor you have given me will be with me always.
I will not miss Señor Drugmonkey. He is a bastard.
When Señor Drugmonkey put my name on his poll of blogs I thought he meant to mock me. To rub it in my face that I work with my hands to make his landscape and not my brain. I tried to kill him two times. But yesterday while I was spreading manure around his carport, he called me inside to say he had something to show me. I had never been inside Señor Drugmonkey's condominium before, and I will never go inside again. But he showed me on his computador that people think I can write prescriptions for medicine better than nurses, toothmen, and those that assist doctors. People who went to school far longer than me and who have received many honors and awards in their school. I never thought when I came to this country 5 years ago I would ever have earned this much respect. I thank you all.
Sadly, I have had an encounter with La Migra which means I will be leaving soon. But I want to say before I go that I will never forget the people of the United States and the lessons that I have learned here. I will miss many things about this country, but the honor you have given me will be with me always.
I will not miss Señor Drugmonkey. He is a bastard.
Let's Lighten The Mood A Bit With Some Highlights From Today's Pill Counting Action, Shall We?
We have Diet Mountain Dew in the store! We have Diet Mountain Dew......in the store!!!! Oh happy day! Dear reader, I cannot begin to explain to you what this means to me. When I switched from regular Mountain Dew to Diet Mountain Dew I instantly lost 5 pounds, that's how much of the stuff I go though my friends. The artificial attempt at citrusiness that is Diet Mountain Dew is probably more a part of my life than my cat Spooky, and now, at last, I can buy it at work. I am free forever from the tyranny of Diet Pepsi. There was no way this could be a bad day.
I was in such a good mood on day one of the Diet Mountain Dew work era that when a customer complained that we had only one bottle of the "buy one get one free" hydrogen peroxide on the shelf I offered to just sell her the one we had for half price. I'm not supposed to do this. Official corpo-policy says to issue the customer a raincheck, but I was crazy on the dew, and putting people before policy.
"But what am I getting free?" was my reward. I spent the next 5 minutes trying to explain how 1 full price + 1 free = 1 at half price. It never sank in. The customer stormed out of the store. I don't say this very often, but maybe there is a reason for that corporate policy.
I could have asked my District Manager about this when he made one of his biannual visits to the store, except that he spent the entirety of it on his cellphone. I could have been grinding up Vicodin and snorting the powder off the pharmacy counter and the DM wouldn't have known. He did look in the pharmacy refrigerator while he was talking and say quickly to my keystone tech that we couldn't be keeping our food in there.
-------------------------
"TODAY IS THE....???????" Said the elderly woman making out her check. She had been making out the check a good 2 or 3 minutes already.
"30th" I said.
"THIRTEENTH?
"30th"
"THE TENTH?"
I gave up. Like the bank's gonna notice what date she puts on there anyway. Team ignorance scored another point.
-------------------------
Right about that magical time of day when your legs are telling you for the first time that they'd rrrreeeeaaallllyyy like to sit down for just a bit I got a phone call.
"Drugmonkey?" came the voice on the other end. I instantly forgot about my legs. This voice was a dead ringer for an ex. An ex I had not parted ways with amicably. I had changed the locks on the front door when this relationship ended.
"How have you been? We haven't talked in awhile"
I began to accept the fact I was going to die soon.
"Ok....."
"Do you have any 75mg Effexor XR?" The tech at the corpro-pharmacy in the next town over who sounds exactly like my psycho ex-girlfriend said. You married people don't know what you're missing.
-------------------------
"And how do you spell your last name ma'am?"
"G like in George......."
"G LIKE IN GIRL!!!" the woman's husband butted in.
-------------------------
A woman bought 6 mechanical heel smoothers. Said she was giving them out as presents. I spent the rest of the day wondering what the occasion could possibly be and drinking Diet Mountain Dew. Out of the pharmacy refrigerator.
A good day indeed.
I was in such a good mood on day one of the Diet Mountain Dew work era that when a customer complained that we had only one bottle of the "buy one get one free" hydrogen peroxide on the shelf I offered to just sell her the one we had for half price. I'm not supposed to do this. Official corpo-policy says to issue the customer a raincheck, but I was crazy on the dew, and putting people before policy.
"But what am I getting free?" was my reward. I spent the next 5 minutes trying to explain how 1 full price + 1 free = 1 at half price. It never sank in. The customer stormed out of the store. I don't say this very often, but maybe there is a reason for that corporate policy.
I could have asked my District Manager about this when he made one of his biannual visits to the store, except that he spent the entirety of it on his cellphone. I could have been grinding up Vicodin and snorting the powder off the pharmacy counter and the DM wouldn't have known. He did look in the pharmacy refrigerator while he was talking and say quickly to my keystone tech that we couldn't be keeping our food in there.
-------------------------
"TODAY IS THE....???????" Said the elderly woman making out her check. She had been making out the check a good 2 or 3 minutes already.
"30th" I said.
"THIRTEENTH?
"30th"
"THE TENTH?"
I gave up. Like the bank's gonna notice what date she puts on there anyway. Team ignorance scored another point.
-------------------------
Right about that magical time of day when your legs are telling you for the first time that they'd rrrreeeeaaallllyyy like to sit down for just a bit I got a phone call.
"Drugmonkey?" came the voice on the other end. I instantly forgot about my legs. This voice was a dead ringer for an ex. An ex I had not parted ways with amicably. I had changed the locks on the front door when this relationship ended.
"How have you been? We haven't talked in awhile"
I began to accept the fact I was going to die soon.
"Ok....."
"Do you have any 75mg Effexor XR?" The tech at the corpro-pharmacy in the next town over who sounds exactly like my psycho ex-girlfriend said. You married people don't know what you're missing.
-------------------------
"And how do you spell your last name ma'am?"
"G like in George......."
"G LIKE IN GIRL!!!" the woman's husband butted in.
-------------------------
A woman bought 6 mechanical heel smoothers. Said she was giving them out as presents. I spent the rest of the day wondering what the occasion could possibly be and drinking Diet Mountain Dew. Out of the pharmacy refrigerator.
A good day indeed.
Monday, April 28, 2008
I Will Try To Remain Calm In This Post. It Will Be Hard. I Have Issues With Medical Professionals Who Think Certain Classes Of People Deserve To Die.
From the pages of this month's Mother Jones. An absurdly inexpensive and extraordinarily well written magazine you should go subscribe to right now:
Remember that. The same kind patients have taken since the 80's
"Why did you say you'd have to remain calm Drugmonkey?" some of you are no doubt saying. "This story is what medicine is all about, the prevention of disease and maintenance of health are the very essence of medicine, at the very core of what health care professionals do. This is a happy story Drugmonkey. You must be a bad man. "
Read on:
You read that right. The decision as to whether to take action to prevent a chronic, fatal if left untreated disease is left up to each individual hospital, clinic, and doctor. Unless you're a hospital worker.
"Oh cut the drama Drugmonkey. So some egghead rule writer never got around to updating policies no one looks at. What ethical clinician would not try to prevent disease?"
Let me......go over a few things as those last two comments sink in.
It's not like PEP is some sort of exotic, special treatment where the meds have to be flown in from the factory within 72 hours. Remember the part about the drugs being the same ones that patients have been taking since the 80's? Here's a common PEP regimen, usually to be taken for 1 month after possible exposure:
Kaletra 400/100mg 1 tablespoonful twice a day.
Plus one of the following:
Epivir 300mg/day or 150mg twice a day or Emtriva 200mg/day
Topped off with Retrovir 200mg three times a day or 300mg twice a day.
There are others, but those of you in the profession get the idea. Any doctor, any Physician's Assistant, any Nurse Practitioner can write prescriptions for these meds. I can almost promise you a pharmacy in your town stocks them. If you have prescription insurance, they're probably covered. They are literally just like any other prescription that goes through my hot little hands in the course of a workday.
Yet a nurse in North Dakota tells people to fly to San Francisco, which is more useful advice than you'll get at certain health departments in Alabama.
As we ponder why, let's apply what I call the "rabies test." Let's say there was a drug protocol that was shown in the New England Journal of Medicine to be 81% effective in preventing rabies after a dog took a chomp on your leg. There were no other proven ways to prevent rabies. The regimen was FDA approved and widely available, yet there were hospitals and clinics that said "unless you're a dogcatcher, we don't feel like giving it to you."
That'd be pretty fucked up wouldn't it?
You wouldn't stand for it would you?
So why is this allowed to stand?
You know why.
It's because gays and lesbians are the new niggers of the 21st century, and if you think they are not in a liberation struggle against the very same forces that held down those of the 20th, I just proved you wrong.
And I remained calm for the most part.
One winter night in 2000, Danny, who was 21 at the time, went home with a guy he met at a crowded bar in San Francisco. Random hookups weren't out of the ordinary for Danny, but this one ended badly: As he was buttoning up to go home, his new friend mentioned he was HIV positive. Usually conscientious about safe sex, Danny hadn't been, and he panicked. " I was in shock" he says. "I just couldn't believe it." He vaguely remembered reading about an emergency treatment that could prevent infection, so when he got home he called the California AIDS hotline. Memory served. A monthlong regimen known as post-exposure prophylaxis treatment (PEP)- usually given to health care workers who have been stuck with needles-was available at local clinics and emergency rooms to people who had recently been exposed to HIV. The side effects of debilitating nausea and fatigue were a small price to pay for its potential benefits: A study of health care workers published in the New England Journal of Medicine linked the rapid administration of the drug to an 81 percent decrease in the risk of contracting the virus.
Danny went to a city clinic, where after a consultation, he was given a prescription for two antiretroviral drugs-the same kind that HIV-postive patients have taken since the 80's
Remember that. The same kind patients have taken since the 80's
"Why did you say you'd have to remain calm Drugmonkey?" some of you are no doubt saying. "This story is what medicine is all about, the prevention of disease and maintenance of health are the very essence of medicine, at the very core of what health care professionals do. This is a happy story Drugmonkey. You must be a bad man. "
Read on:
Danny was lucky that California is one of the few states (along with New York, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Rhode Island) where policies ensure that the general public-not just hospital workers who have been exposed on the job-can access the drugs. Elsewhere, the desicion is up to individual hospitals, clinics and doctors.
You read that right. The decision as to whether to take action to prevent a chronic, fatal if left untreated disease is left up to each individual hospital, clinic, and doctor. Unless you're a hospital worker.
"Oh cut the drama Drugmonkey. So some egghead rule writer never got around to updating policies no one looks at. What ethical clinician would not try to prevent disease?"
Surveying all 50 state health departments and more than 50 ER's nationwide, I (MJ writer Justine Sharrock) encountered STD clinicians and workers at AIDS hotlines and Planned Parenthoods who did not know PEP could be prescribed to the public. An Alabama health department official told me "It's not available" A nurse at a North Dakota clinic said he all but encouraged patients to fly to San Francisco.
Let me......go over a few things as those last two comments sink in.
It's not like PEP is some sort of exotic, special treatment where the meds have to be flown in from the factory within 72 hours. Remember the part about the drugs being the same ones that patients have been taking since the 80's? Here's a common PEP regimen, usually to be taken for 1 month after possible exposure:
Kaletra 400/100mg 1 tablespoonful twice a day.
Plus one of the following:
Epivir 300mg/day or 150mg twice a day or Emtriva 200mg/day
Topped off with Retrovir 200mg three times a day or 300mg twice a day.
There are others, but those of you in the profession get the idea. Any doctor, any Physician's Assistant, any Nurse Practitioner can write prescriptions for these meds. I can almost promise you a pharmacy in your town stocks them. If you have prescription insurance, they're probably covered. They are literally just like any other prescription that goes through my hot little hands in the course of a workday.
Yet a nurse in North Dakota tells people to fly to San Francisco, which is more useful advice than you'll get at certain health departments in Alabama.
As we ponder why, let's apply what I call the "rabies test." Let's say there was a drug protocol that was shown in the New England Journal of Medicine to be 81% effective in preventing rabies after a dog took a chomp on your leg. There were no other proven ways to prevent rabies. The regimen was FDA approved and widely available, yet there were hospitals and clinics that said "unless you're a dogcatcher, we don't feel like giving it to you."
That'd be pretty fucked up wouldn't it?
You wouldn't stand for it would you?
So why is this allowed to stand?
You know why.
It's because gays and lesbians are the new niggers of the 21st century, and if you think they are not in a liberation struggle against the very same forces that held down those of the 20th, I just proved you wrong.
And I remained calm for the most part.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
I Bet Being A Pharmacist For Torturers Would Suck, But Probably Not As Much As A Gig With CVS
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Keystone Techs Are Not To Be Confused With Keystone States.
Keystone techs are indispensable. No dispensing happens without your keystone tech.
Keystone states are very dispensable. Especially after tonight.
Keystone techs run my business. Keystone states are full of those business left behind.
Keystone techs are fearless. They can stare down the most ferocious of crackhead customers and ensure that the Vicodin is not filled early.
Keystone states are full of fear. Fear that allows the ruling elite to divide the ruled against themselves, in part by tagging those that oppose the rulers.....elitists. The Keystone state continues to sacrifice its young to wars both literal and economic, because the Keystone state does what it's told.
Keystone techs are whip-smart. Keystone state voters don't quite get it.
So when assigning blame for what happened tonight, make sure it goes to the appropriate Keystone.
I never in my life thought I would say such a thing, but it's up to you to save us Indiana.
Keystone states are very dispensable. Especially after tonight.
Keystone techs run my business. Keystone states are full of those business left behind.
Keystone techs are fearless. They can stare down the most ferocious of crackhead customers and ensure that the Vicodin is not filled early.
Keystone states are full of fear. Fear that allows the ruling elite to divide the ruled against themselves, in part by tagging those that oppose the rulers.....elitists. The Keystone state continues to sacrifice its young to wars both literal and economic, because the Keystone state does what it's told.
Keystone techs are whip-smart. Keystone state voters don't quite get it.
So when assigning blame for what happened tonight, make sure it goes to the appropriate Keystone.
I never in my life thought I would say such a thing, but it's up to you to save us Indiana.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Big Pharma Joins Forces With The Insurance Industry. The Surprise Result? A Synergistic Aquafuck For You.
Of course when I say "surprise result" what I mean is "completely predictable result"
Wait..... you mean you take a product that people have to have in order to live, and make one corporation, an entity that by definition has as its most important responsibility making as much money as possible by any legal means necessary for its shareholders, the sole distributor of that product, and the price goes up?
Really?
But.....but.....Express Scripts says on its website that its mission is to:
Express Scripts says its mission is to make prescription drugs more affordable. And surely Express Scripts wouldn't lie. Because pharmacy benefit managers have a proven track record of holding themselves to only the highest ethical standards:
And conducting themselves with only the utmost integrity:
Maybe I should go back and change what I just said about corporations making money by any legal means.....
I should also change what I said about there only being one rat-bastard corporate monopoly involved. In the case of these specialty drugs there are two. Only one corporation is allowed to make the med. Then only one corporation is allowed to sell it to you.
Dr. Robert R Clancy gets the Drugmonkey "Plain As The Nose On Your Face" award for outstanding accomplishment in stating the obvious.
I bet if we gave FedEx exclusive rights to handle the delivery of H.P. Acthar Gel, we could get that price up to $400,000 or so.
Crap. I was trying to make a joke but probably just gave them an idea.
I'll let Questcor have the last word, because quite honestly, they make my point better than I ever could:
The reality was better than they expected.
Wake up.
Doctors treating children with a rare and severe form of epilepsy were stunned by the news. A crucial drug, H.P. Acthar Gel, that had been selling for $1,600 a vial would now cost $23,000.
The price increase, put in place over last Labor Day weekend, also jolted employers that provide health benefits to their workers and bear the brunt of drug costs.
As it turned out, the exclusive distributor of H.P. Acthar Gel is Express Scripts, a company whose core business is supposed to be helping employers manage their drug insurance programs and get medicines at the best available prices.
But in recent years, drug benefit managers like Express Scripts have built lucrative side businesses seemingly at odds with that best-price mission. A growing portion of their revenue comes from acting as exclusive or semi-exclusive distributors of expensive specialty drugs that can cost thousands of dollars. And the prices of such medicines are rising much faster than for the mainstream prescription drugs available through a wide variety of distributors.
Wait..... you mean you take a product that people have to have in order to live, and make one corporation, an entity that by definition has as its most important responsibility making as much money as possible by any legal means necessary for its shareholders, the sole distributor of that product, and the price goes up?
Really?
But.....but.....Express Scripts says on its website that its mission is to:
make the use of prescription drugs safer and more affordable for more than 50 million Americans through thousands of employers, managed care plans, governments and labor unions.
Express Scripts says its mission is to make prescription drugs more affordable. And surely Express Scripts wouldn't lie. Because pharmacy benefit managers have a proven track record of holding themselves to only the highest ethical standards:
Medco Health Solutions, the largest U.S. pharmacy benefit manager, paid more than $200 million in kickbacks to a large unnamed health plan to obtain contracts, according to court documents filed last week by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia, the Newark Star-Ledger reports. Federal prosecutors filed the documents as part of a civil lawsuit against Medco. The lawsuit alleges that Medco defrauded the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. According to the lawsuit, Medco cancelled prescriptions, switched prescriptions without physician consent, did not fill prescriptions completely and failed to inform physicians about adverse medication interactions
And conducting themselves with only the utmost integrity:
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees sued the nation’s four largest PBMs (PCS, Express Scripts, Medco and Caremark), alleging that they violated California’ Unfair Competition Law. The complaint charges that the four PBMs have negotiated rebates from drug manufacturers and discounts from retail pharmacies, yet have not passed those savings on to healthcare plans and consumers.I mean, until now, the conduct of Pharmacy Benefit Managers was beyond reproach:
Caremark Rx, the prescription drug plan manager, agreed yesterday to pay $137.5 million to settle federal lawsuits filed by whistle-blowers that accused a company it acquired in 2003 of improper dealings with pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Maybe I should go back and change what I just said about corporations making money by any legal means.....
I should also change what I said about there only being one rat-bastard corporate monopoly involved. In the case of these specialty drugs there are two. Only one corporation is allowed to make the med. Then only one corporation is allowed to sell it to you.
In the case of H.P. Acthar Gel, an injectable anti-seizure medication derived from hog hormones, the fourteenfold price increase came after the maker, Questcor Pharmaceuticals, gave exclusive distribution rights to Express Scripts’ CuraScript unit last summer.“This sort of puts the spotlight on the greed angle of the business,” said Dr. Robert R. Clancy, a pediatric neurologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Dr. Robert R Clancy gets the Drugmonkey "Plain As The Nose On Your Face" award for outstanding accomplishment in stating the obvious.
He has been using H.P. Acthar Gel to treat a severely ill 3-year-old girl, Reegan Schwartz. Employer health plans bear most of the drug’s steep cost, with individuals in many cases making only a standard co-payment. In the case of the two courses of Acthar treatments for Reegan, the cost to her father’s health plan was about $226,000.
I bet if we gave FedEx exclusive rights to handle the delivery of H.P. Acthar Gel, we could get that price up to $400,000 or so.
Crap. I was trying to make a joke but probably just gave them an idea.
I'll let Questcor have the last word, because quite honestly, they make my point better than I ever could:
“We did some market research,” (Questcor executive vice president) Steve Cartt said. Talking to pediatric neurologists and others about various pricing options “gave us some comfort that the strategy would work, and physicians would continue to use the drug, and payers would pay,” he said. “The reality was better than we expected.”
The reality was better than they expected.
Wake up.
The Iraq War Explained In One Sentence From An Elected Official, Part 2
President Bush on Iraq, December 12th, 2005.
"I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome."
The sad part is, if we had a competent individual serving in the office of President Of The United States that quote would have been big news. As it is, we've become so used to an idiot President that stupidity like this can drift like a cloud for over two years before even a political nerd such as myself catches wind of it. The occupant of the nation's top office has become the recipient of the soft bigotry of low expectations. Does that make you happy?
Here's to idiocy being big news again someday soon.
"I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome."
The sad part is, if we had a competent individual serving in the office of President Of The United States that quote would have been big news. As it is, we've become so used to an idiot President that stupidity like this can drift like a cloud for over two years before even a political nerd such as myself catches wind of it. The occupant of the nation's top office has become the recipient of the soft bigotry of low expectations. Does that make you happy?
Here's to idiocy being big news again someday soon.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Highlights From This Weekend's Pill Counting Action. One Day Before The Weekend Is Over.
The first customer of the day slammed his vial on the counter. "THESE DON'T WORK!!" He semi-screamed. "ALL THEY DO IS MAKE ME PISS!"
The prescription was for furosemide. Time for my counseling star to shine baby.
The customer also had a prescription for Prozac that ordered me to "dispense 60 tablets by mouth" Maybe the act of me forming a nice little Prozac spitball then getting them to the patient like a mama bird was supposed to help snap him out of his depression. Anyway, after I puked Prozac all over him I explained that furosemide is a diuretic, which means that it does in fact make you piss a lot.
As this was going on a lady asked the high school kid mopping the cough/cold aisle where the Nasonex was. I watched them search the allergy section together for a good 10 minutes. Nasonex is prescription-only. I'm a bad man.
--------------------
"Do you have any allergies to medicines?"
"You mean right now?"
--------------------
A fax showed up from a doctor's office intended for the Safeway on the other side of town. I forwarded it to it's intended recipient and was rewarded for my good deed with a phone call a few minutes later:
"I'm not filling this! I can't be sure it really came from the doctor!!"
Good call Safeway. Because you really can't be too careful when you're dealing with ibuprofen prescriptions on a doctor's letterhead faxed to you from a licensed pharmacy. Sometimes the customer is not the idiot.
--------------------
"Hi, I'm calling from Dr. Dumbass' office with a prescription for a patient. Do you need the patients name?"
I decided I didn't, and just gave the pills she ordered to the next person who came up to the counter. Sometimes the customer isn't the idiot two times in a row.
--------------------
"Is this the first time we've filled prescriptions for you?"
"Yes....oh....you mean today?"
---------------------
My technicians love the netflix. I don't know why. I never did hop on the netflix bandwagon even though I'm white enough to glow in the dark. This morning though, my technicians were talking netflix yet again.....
"You have to see 'No Country For Old Men' next"
"They made a movie about Drugmonkey?"
Middle age approaches like a towing thundercloud on the horizon.....
--------------------
The woman at the counter had tried to dress professionally but looked rather unnatural in her clothes. Go to any office park during lunch hour and you'll see no shortage of her type trying to powerwalk around the parking lot while wondering what Oprah would have eaten. "Is this the best thing to deal with stress?" she asked. She was holding a box of store-brand Ducolax.
I've learned the best thing to do in these situations is to get them talking. "What kind of stress are you dealing with exactly?" I said the words slowly, biding for time so I could think why on earth this woman thought she needed a stimulant laxative to deal with the burdens life was putting upon her.
"It's nothing in particular. I just need some help to relax sometimes so I can sleep."
Mystery solved. Relax. You see, the box of the store-brand Dulcolax was labeled only as "Corpo-pharmacy laxative"
Relax/laxative. Get it? Welcome to my world.
A full weekend of pill counting highlights and still a day to go....
The prescription was for furosemide. Time for my counseling star to shine baby.
The customer also had a prescription for Prozac that ordered me to "dispense 60 tablets by mouth" Maybe the act of me forming a nice little Prozac spitball then getting them to the patient like a mama bird was supposed to help snap him out of his depression. Anyway, after I puked Prozac all over him I explained that furosemide is a diuretic, which means that it does in fact make you piss a lot.
As this was going on a lady asked the high school kid mopping the cough/cold aisle where the Nasonex was. I watched them search the allergy section together for a good 10 minutes. Nasonex is prescription-only. I'm a bad man.
--------------------
"Do you have any allergies to medicines?"
"You mean right now?"
--------------------
A fax showed up from a doctor's office intended for the Safeway on the other side of town. I forwarded it to it's intended recipient and was rewarded for my good deed with a phone call a few minutes later:
"I'm not filling this! I can't be sure it really came from the doctor!!"
Good call Safeway. Because you really can't be too careful when you're dealing with ibuprofen prescriptions on a doctor's letterhead faxed to you from a licensed pharmacy. Sometimes the customer is not the idiot.
--------------------
"Hi, I'm calling from Dr. Dumbass' office with a prescription for a patient. Do you need the patients name?"
I decided I didn't, and just gave the pills she ordered to the next person who came up to the counter. Sometimes the customer isn't the idiot two times in a row.
--------------------
"Is this the first time we've filled prescriptions for you?"
"Yes....oh....you mean today?"
---------------------
My technicians love the netflix. I don't know why. I never did hop on the netflix bandwagon even though I'm white enough to glow in the dark. This morning though, my technicians were talking netflix yet again.....
"You have to see 'No Country For Old Men' next"
"They made a movie about Drugmonkey?"
Middle age approaches like a towing thundercloud on the horizon.....
--------------------
The woman at the counter had tried to dress professionally but looked rather unnatural in her clothes. Go to any office park during lunch hour and you'll see no shortage of her type trying to powerwalk around the parking lot while wondering what Oprah would have eaten. "Is this the best thing to deal with stress?" she asked. She was holding a box of store-brand Ducolax.
I've learned the best thing to do in these situations is to get them talking. "What kind of stress are you dealing with exactly?" I said the words slowly, biding for time so I could think why on earth this woman thought she needed a stimulant laxative to deal with the burdens life was putting upon her.
"It's nothing in particular. I just need some help to relax sometimes so I can sleep."
Mystery solved. Relax. You see, the box of the store-brand Dulcolax was labeled only as "Corpo-pharmacy laxative"
Relax/laxative. Get it? Welcome to my world.
A full weekend of pill counting highlights and still a day to go....
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