You Guys Did Such A Good Job Of Picking My Last Vacation Spot I'm Doing It Again.

Different park, but the same idea. Big trees, many trails, and very.....very few people.

I know this will break some of your hearts, and I don't blame you. I'll offer you the consolation of the "read a random post" feature on the right hand side of the page however. I just clicked on it a few times and realized I had totally forgotten how good some of the shit I've written over the last few years has been. You should try the "read a random post" button often while I'm gone.

I'll see if I can send you a tweet or two while I'm in the land of the giants. Otherwise I'll be back next week sometime.

If I don't get eaten by an elk.

The Intellectual Quality Of Our Opponents On Display Yet Again.

This is how well versed the propaganda pundits on the right are on this issue. Listen to Maria Bartaromo, who has been a television news anchor for over 16 years.

"How come you don't use it [Medicare]? You don't have it. How come you don't have it?"

She was talking to a 45 year old man.

This is what they give us when we look for informed commentary on the issue. News anchors who ask 45 year olds why they are not on the government health plan for which they will not be eligible for 20 years.

I wrote back in June that if this battle was fought on just the facts, we would win in a landslide.

We are losing, and I was right.

The End Of The Bill Monning Pill Counting Highlight Parade.

I have a picture of an old lady's leg on my cellphone. It's bare and pasty white and I think it's full of varicose veins but I can't stand to look at it long enough to tell. It's on my phone. The phone that goes with me everywhere. The phone that is sitting 2 feet from me now while I type. It has a picture of a disgusting old woman's leg. And I can't delete it until I get an OK from a lawyer.

I saw and barely heard her bump into the tote and I immediately looked away. Because if that had been me that knocked my shin on a plastic box I would have been embarrassed to have had anyone witness such idiotic clumsiness. Embarrassment was the furthest thing from her mind however.

OOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!! it went. Or something like that. I looked at her again and expected her to be on fire or something. She wasn't. As soon as the word "negligent" came out of her mouth I knew her game. I also knew to keep my mouth shut and let the manager who's been to corpro-seminars on how to deal with customers who say "OW!" and "negligent" in the same sentence deal with the situaltion. Soon she was in the waiting area surrounded by three people taking care of her every need. Forms were being filled out. I had to write what I saw. It went something like. "I was filling prescriptions and the lady hit her shin on a tote" I think that annoyed her and that's when she demanded we take a picture.

There was no designated store camera and the manager looked at me. Dammitall. He is a good guy, and the, ahem, "victim" was actually screwing herself here, as the picture would show not a damn thing wrong with her leg. So I handed over my cellphone and they took a goddamn picture of the old bat's leg. And now it's with me. Always.

God forbid a hot chick should ever sustain a breast injury in my place of employment.

The next bout of screaming I heard came from the opposite end of the age spectrum. A little boy was having a fit over ice cream. He didn't want any and his mother was telling him she was buying some whether he wanted it or not. It wasn't the flavor he had a problem with, the little dude just didn't feel like eating ice cream at the moment. I swear. This in the same week I witnessed a customer panic at the prospect that I might fill his Vicodin prescription. I think I may have unknowingly slipped into some sort of bizzaro altrna-pharmacy universe at some point in the last few days. I think. What I know now for sure now though, is that I would not be the world's worst parent.

As I reached the point in the day when "Jesus when do I get to go home" becomes "Jesus I'm not gonna get everything done before the end of the day" I got a prescription for an AnaKit. Holy hell the thought of an AnaKit hadn't crossed my mind in years. The little red box that had once been packed in the luggage of every little yard ape with an allergy to bee stings had at some point had its clock cleaned by the EpiPen and I had failed to notice. I looked at the prescription for the AnaKit and remembered skinny ties, hair bands, my first beer, and Whitney Houston. Oh my God at one time I thought Whitney Houston was the most beautiful woman in the world. I thought of a time when it would have been incomprehensible that I would be carrying around a picture of an ugly old woman's leg with me everywhere I went. I was surprised how a prescription could take you back to the best years of your life that are never coming back. I was kinda sad as the call was made to change it to an EpiPen. I wish I could dispense an AnaKit one last time.

So thanks for coming through for Bill Monning the way you did. I saw him the other day and he made it a point to come over and chat me up a little bit. Said that things should be settling down in the legislature in a few months and then it would be a good time to start brainstorming about what we might like to see from our representatives. Are you getting this? Thanks to you guys we now have this man's ear. Lets use it. I have some ideas for what I would like to see state government do for our profession, but by all means send me yours. Post them here, send them in an e-mail, start a discussion. We have someone on our side who's listening. For the love of God let's say something.

Nothing More For Me To Add Here.

Day 6 Of Pill Counting Action.

Karma set her gentle hands upon me and nudged me into consciousness early this day. I knew not why, but I know better than to fight Karma when Karma has plans for you. I pulled back the blinds and was bathed in the brilliant sunshine of a California coastal morning. Perhaps Karma meant to mock me this workday. To force me to look at her brilliance. That didn't seem right though. That's so unlike Karma. I put my fate in her hands and began my day.

I heard it before I even walked through the front door. "WHAT TIME DOES THE PHARMACY OPEN??? I HAVE A TEE TIME!!!!!" It was at that moment I realized why Karma had set me in motion this day earlier than usual. Karma wanted me to go to Starbucks and have a cup of coffee. Bitching about your tee time is probably the best way to ensure that I open right on time when I am running early.

Not that I have anything against golf. it's more the type of assholes who play golf I have something against.

The first prescription of the day was for 36 mg of Concerta, a stimulant used to treat children whose parents suffer from codependency, and 25mg of Ambien, a sleep aid. Right there on the same blank written at the same time by the same doctor. It reminded me of a story I read once about how prison guards would, for their own entertainment, put one inmate from the Crips and one from the Bloods in the yard at the same time knowing they would fight it out gladiator style. I wondered if the doctor just wanted to see which drug would win.

The phone rang and the person said "Oh, I have the wrong number, I wanted to phone in some prescription refills" and hung up. The next caller didn't hang up, and asked me if we carried basketballs. After that though, came the best call of all:

"Oh....is (insert name of other pharmacist) there?"

"No, it's her day off"

"I'll just call back later"

You would have to know this particular customer to know just how sweet those words sounded. She is trained. Finally, I am free.

Or maybe not. The "clank....clank.....clank..." of the walker making its way up the tile floor announced the entry of another person into my life.

"I'M TIRED OF TRYING TO DEAL WITH THOSE CLOWNS AT CVS!!! I WANT TO GO TO THE BEST!!!! ARE YOU THE BEST?"

I don't think I lied to him really. I'm definitely the best pharmacy in this mall. Probably the best within a 10 block area or so. He wasn't all that specific, and I'm sure as shit a step up from that goddamn CVS, which is, in fact, manned by clowns. Sometimes I think the whole reason CVS is profitable is because of the humongous tax credits they must receive for hiring the handicapped.

"I LIKE YOU!!!!" Was the last thing walker man said to me before he clanked out the door. I was free for about an hour. Karma giveth and Karma taketh away.

I'm thinking Concerta would shank Ambien and totally make Ambien its bitch.

The Pill Counting Parade Continues.

Why would you ask that? Seriously. If it's 9:00, and you're at the pharmacy, and you see me cranking open the gates, key words......cranking open.......why on Earth would you ask.....

Remember it's 9:00. Pretty much on the button.

......"what time does the pharmacy open?" Shouldn't you be able to at least formulate a pretty good guess based on observational data? And maybe not interrupt me while I'm in the process of opening?

I seriously can't think of a stupider question right now. It's definitely the dumbest one I've been asked in years.

First prescription of the day was for 10 vials of Humalog that had been billed for one. Which means within the first five minutes of business I saved more than an entire days worth of profit. Because I am all about capitalism and profit. How this place functioned before they had the wisdom to hire me I'll never know.

One of the first customers of the day to my trusty technician: "I don't have anything? Good....because I don't need anything, but I thought the computer called me." I seriously think the customer would have bought whatever the computer told them to. The Unabomber tried to tell us this day was coming. Your future enslavement to the machines will be my opportunity for wealth however, because in my never ending pursuit of profit, I think I am going to start a program where I call people in a robotic-sounding voice and order them to come to the store and buy shit.

I think I'll tell them to buy nail clippers. I will not be happy until every person you see on the street is wearing a set of nail clippers around their neck.

A professional dilemma. You overhear a customer ask where the Icy Hot is because he wants to put it on his blood clot. Do you investigate? Find out why he thinks he has a blood clot? Marvel at his ability to walk and talk while some part of his body has evidently been cut off from the vital nourishment that is free flowing blood in its liquid form? Tell him that Icy Hot may be the least effective clot busting drug ever, but the only one covered on the Cigna Health Care formulary?* While I was pondering this the phone rang and I had to take a prescription and my cashier told him Icy Hot was down aisle three. I guess karma really didn't think my involvement was required.

My technician asked me "So what are you doing all weekend?" Offending the three chickies at the condom rack who assumed she was talking to them. I'd be offended too. Who says you can't have sex during the week?

Towards the end of the day came the Great Cash Register Summit. The Assistant Manager who's been an Assistant Manager for 10 years came back to take the register till to the office. She couldn't get the drawer to pop open. She tried this. Then that. Then this again. And again. And again. You've heard the old saying about the definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? I always knew that Assistant Manager was bat-shit crazy, and now I had proof. She called the other manager with less than a quarter of her experience to solve the problem. They defined themselves as insane a few more times before they decided to reboot the register. Part of me wanted to help. Kind of. But it was so damn entertaining, and I was kind of offended when they decided to bring the rookie cashier back to ask his insight. It was a full scale summit now. A meeting of the minds. The computers can successfully order us to come in and buy stuff but we are incapable of getting them to open the cash register drawer. The handwriting is on the wall my friends.

The drawer popped open while a woman battling a refill too soon reject had my attention. I will never know all the details of the great cash register summit.

The day ended with a guy popping his head under the gate as I was cranking it shut to ask what time we closed. For some reason that didn't bother me as much.

*That was a joke. I'm sure Cigna covers effective clot dissolving medication. I'm also sure they denied coverage for a teenager's liver transplant and then she died. Wait. That wasn't fair. Cigna did change their minds and decide to pay for the transplant. A few hours before she died. Cigna says "This decision was made despite the fact that Cigna had no obligation to do so and despite concluding, based on the information available, that the treatment would be unproven and ineffective and therefore experimental and not covered by the employer's benefit plan,"

Awww.....isn't Cigna sweet? They decided to let a teenage girl try to live even though they had no obligation to do so.

A public health plan would have an obligation to do so. Just sayin'

Day 4 Of The Pill counting Parade.

So, real life got in the way of my chronicle of the week of pill counting highlights. And by "real life" I mean, "my desire to sleep" Like I have a real life. Ha. Anyway. we'll pick up where we left off. Think of it as some sort of pill counting highlights on tape delay.

I'll be honest, this week I have been entering the happy pill counting room worried if the day would provide enough pill counting highlights to fulfill the commitment I've made to you guys. The "Highlights From Today's Pill Counting Action" type of days usually have a unique feel to them, you can almost sense a disturbance in the force when one is about to happen. They also lend themselves to the 12 hour shifts, which won't be coming up for me until later on in the week. Once again I entered this workday wondering if I would be up to the challenge.

My concerns were immediately put to rest, by myself, when I tried to blow my nose and immediately clogged up my ears. This has happened from to time to time before, for like a second or two, but this time the clog wasn't going anywhere. I tried a big yawn, I stuck my pinky in and wiggled it around, I popped in some gum that I realized too late was an....what is the word.....rather....exotic....flavor one of my technicians had brought over from India, but it was all as effective at clearing out my ear as the airborne is at preventing colds. I started to wonder if maybe a piece of snot had gotten blown up next to my eardrum. Customers do not wait for you to resolve your personal problems however, and there was a man forging his way to the pharmacy to demand my attention.

He asked me about earwax removable drops. I swear. When I asked him to repeat what he was saying I think he might have thought I was making fun of him, but I honestly could not have been more empathetic at the moment. I was starting to resign myself to a life of silence.

Until the PA went off. Losing half your hearing brings the store's PA system to almost a bearable level. Bearable in volume. Not necessarily in content. The announcement went something like this:

"Ummmm.....yeah......for the owner of a large dog who asked someone to watch him, it's now run over to Petco....the large dog......that.....a customer wanted watched.......ummmm.....it's now.....over at.....um......Petco. The large dog. Thank you."

It was the cashier whom I was convinced was drunk yesterday. I sent a clerk back to sniff her again.

My deafness and the saga of the large dog were not the biggest news of this day however. That distinction belongs to a development in my employer's prescription transfer gift card program. For what seems like an eternity now, my employer has offered a $25 gift card to customers who transfer their prescriptions from another pharmacy. And when they say "customers who transfer a prescription from another pharmacy" what they of course mean is "any customer who asks for one." Transfers, new prescriptions, refills, buying something the syndicated health columnist in the local newspaper recommended, the tone set from our higher ups has been clear. Give 'em a card and shut them up. Today we may have finally found the limit to my employer's generosity though.

A woman demanded a gift card for transferring her two prescriptions to Target. Let me repeat that. Someone wanted us to pay her for taking her prescriptions and having them filled somewhere else. She didn't get a card, and this one might stick.

Might I said.

My ear unclogged and I wasn't sure if it was my imagination that made me feel a chunk of something go down my throat I was forced to swallow. I vowed to only breathe through my mouth from now on like the stupid people do. I walked over to the in window to wait on the nervous looking man, who presented me with a prescription made out for Keflex and Vicodin.

"Can you just enter the antibiotic?" He asked. Huh. Sometimes water does go uphill I guess.

"Sure, I'll just put the other one on hold in your profile for you, if you decide you want it just let us know."

"No!!!"

He explained that he was a recovering addict, that he had told the people at the emergency room this when he was admitted, and that when he saw the Vicodin on his prescription he asked the nurse to scratch it off. Whereupon the nurse told him just not to fill it. I wondered if my local hospital had a program where they might stuff t-bone steaks into the discharge packages of vegans and told the man that the Vicodin order no longer existed.

So the day ended with a customer begging not to get Vicodin. Talk about a disturbance in the force. I have high hopes for tomorrow.

High hopes. I just got that. I kill me.

To Every Thing There Is A Season....

....and a time to every purpose under the heaven; A time to be born, and a time to die.

That came from the Bible. I have no problem ripping off God when I need material for my blog.

My label printer died this day. It wasn't a surprise. We've all seen it was very sick for quite awhile now. It pained me to watch the label printer go through its final phases. Mysterious farting noises, unresponsiveness, chronic misalignment indicative of delusional confusion. It pained me mostly because it meant I had to do three times as much work to get a label on every goddamn vial that was going out the door. My label printer's pain is over now, the heroic efforts of my employer's electronic maintenance department to save the $60 or so it probably would have cost them to replace it weeks ago have come to naught. The carcass of my label printer was carried out this afternoon.

Fucking piece of shit.

If only the printer would have had the robust health of the store's public address system. Not a damn thing wrong with that piece of equipment. And it's not the least bit shy either, never hesitating to announce something like "I NEED A PRICECHECK ON HEINZ KETCHUP 32 OUNCE TWINPACK!!!!!" every other time I am talking to a person about their prescription or trying to decode a doctor's message on the voicemail. Today the overbearing obnoxiousness of the PA system had the added bonus of seemingly being maned by a drunk woman. Seriously. I know drunkenness like few other subjects my friends, and the lady up front totally gave the impression of having hit up the sauce. I summoned one of the high-school age clerks pretending to stock the shelves.

"Hey.....hey B____, go smell N_____"

"What?"

"Seriously. She sounds totally drunk. See if you can smell it on her breath. Ask if you can borrow a pen or something."

This is why it's great to be at a level above that of regular worker, but not quite that of management expected to run things. Because I can send people up to sniff the front end checker not out of any concern for the well being of the store, but solely for self-amusement purposes.

The sniff test came back negative. I am still working on alternate explanations.

I do do professional stuff though. Like help the man who told me he got an antibiotic the other day and was sure "it has just decimated my system" He then asked if I knew anything about Amoxicillin. I explained to him Amoxicillin does tend to come up in our profession's schooling and then listened for a good 3 or 4 minutes how he had "this thing that's up in my sinuses, and down in my throat and you know.....cough cough. The cough was faked for my benefit. The monologue ended with. "I've been getting better the last three days"

Just to help my colleagues out there reading this. Forget the definition of "decimated" you may have learned in high school. It now means "isn't curing me quite as fast as I'd like to be cured"

My technician asked for help reading the directions on a prescription she was typing.

"Prior to semen collection" I told her. She then washed her hands.

The day ended with another reminder of the fragility of life. My pen died a natural death. This was a surprise. Pens in my world as a rule have short, violent existences. They are chewed on from the moment they enter my hands. Their points are slammed against prescription pads when nurses make my life far harder than it should be and they were at one time quite often thrown across the room. Nowadays they are usually thrown straight into the floor so fewer people see. The Azor pen made it all the way to the end of its ink cartridge today though. It was a tough bastard, and it will be missed.

Not as much as if I hadn't scored a new Viagra pen though. Karma has seen fit to provide me with a new Viagra pen and that means this goes down in the books as a good day.

The Viagra pen won't be chewed on though, as I can't seem to put the Viagra pen in my mouth. Not that there would be anything wrong with that.

The Week Of Pill Counting Highlights Part 2.

It's never easy to hear tales of woe and agony, much less witness them firsthand. But the human condition is such that we all face obstacles we must try to overcome. The challenges life throws our way will not always be fair, but we have no choice to struggle on. Struggle in pursuit of the hope that someday, if not for us, karma or our creator will smile upon our actions in some way that will benefit the cosmic force that governs life. We struggle, but often unsuccessfully, and while it is not pleasurable to watch, I knew what I was getting into when I picked my profession. I was reminded of this as I walked through the door to begin my workday.

"OH COME ON!!!!! I SLID MY CARD ALREADY" The woman said as I got ready to assume the position, and my heart broke for the old wrinkly bitch. The way she summoned up the strength and quiet dignity to slide her American Express through the credit card reader again, when by all rights she should not have had to, inspired me to move forward in the struggles of my own life.

The first call I took was from a woman who wanted to know the time. She calls often and says she's blind and needs to know when to take her medication. For some reason I don't fuck with her, maybe because she does manage to tie in her insanity with pharmaceutical care, unlike a good portion of the wackjobs who get past my employer's voice mail. I did finally realize today though, that the woman takes her meds four times a day, and the store closes every night for 12 hours. I think she may be using me.

The next call I took was from a customer who wanted to know if their prescription had any refills.

"I don't see where we've ever filled that for you ma'am"

"Oh, you've never filled it, I get it through mail order. So do I have any refills left?"

I remembered the inspiration of the lady at the credit card machine and vowed to struggle on.

From the front register I received a report that someone demanded to exchange an empty box of dental floss for a new one. "It fell out, it was defective!" they said. They had also spit in it. That's why you stay in school kids, because when you're behind the drug counter wearing a white coat you don't have to be nearly as nice to people like that as that poor schlep up front had to be. You will, however, have to nervously do mathematical calculations upon receiving a prescription for 26.25ml of cefinidir and breathe a sigh of relief upon realizing that the physician's assistant absolutely walked the perfect line between the minimum effective dose of 26.24ml and 26.26ml, which would have been instantly fatal.

A person tried to pick up a prescription for their uncle who had died. Vicodin. Surprise!

As I made my exit through the store's front door to end this day's commitment to my employer, I saw the poor schlep who had to deal with the dental floss incident chase down a teenage girl.

"Ma'am.....you forgot your cash back!!"

"What? I get cash back? Wow! I didn't know that!!"

There you go, sometimes the karma of the credit card reader taketh away, but sometimes it giveth as well.

Goodnight.

The Week Of The Bill Monning Pill Counting Action Chronicles Begins.

So I wasn't sure what to do with this guy. Last time he was in the store he told me all about how he was starting a company where he "would be hiring all sorts of pharmacists and techs" and offered me a job. That wasn't the problem, although I did just condense into one sentence what took him a good twenty minutes to say.

The time before that he told me how he was going off to Bermuda for a modeling job. The time before that how creepy it was to wake up in a mental hospital "full of the really crazy people" You have an idea of the problem now. He was a regular customer, and I had no idea how one would distinguish him from the really crazy people.

Except this time he was asking me about peanut allergies. He told me he was deathly allergic to peanuts and he had just eaten a peanut butter sandwich. He asked me what he should do.

"Well if you're as allergic as you say you are you're gonna have to go to the ER" I said. It was the correct answer. "Deathly allergic" he did say. And even though I knew damn well he wasn't, it was the answer to his question.

Holy shit the look on his face was priceless. And the way he sprinted out of the store. Who knew anaphalaxis was the key to a personal best time in the 100 meters.

Lesson to you dear customer. I am only as good as the questions I am asked.

About an hour later I hear, "So what is this medicine for?"

Sweet. If I am only as good as the questions I am asked, It was now time for me to shine baby.

"To treat high cholesterol" Fuck yeah. Mr. Pharmacist. Answering pharmacist questions. Hear me roar.

"Why would my doctor give me a medicine for high cholesterol?" My roaring stopped and I went right back into "what do I do with this guy?" mode. I didn't want to be a smart ass. Honest I didn't, but I am only as good as the questions I am asked.

"Because he thinks your cholesterol is too high"

My reward was a stone-faced death glare. Who knew elevated cholesterol was the key to total muscle and cerebral paralysis.

Headed into the homestretch of the workday now I was:

"Can I get a refill?"

"Sure, what's your name?"

"Oops, oh no"

Guy's Mom hated him I guess. Or named him after what was said after the condom broke.

"I have a question" Time to get it up again.

"It says here to take four times a day, but it would be more natural for me to take it three, so that's what I should do, right?"

They say everything is negotiable, including now, evidently, the half life of Penicillin.

But not my quitting time. That is never negotiable. I slammed the gate down after that one, woofed down a sub to keep from starving to death, and made a beeline home to commemorate this day with a tumbler of scotch.

And a peanut. This day definitely deserves to be remembered with a peanut.