The Pharmacy Chick

It takes a lot tick off the Pharmacy Chick, I will say that from the start.  I have been a retailer for WAY to long to have every little thing bother me.  However, tonight Mr Chick and I did something we have never done before….Walk out of a restaurant.

We had decided to meet a friend of ours for dinner after we had played golf (and she had finished work).  We chose a mexican restaurant (and while I won’t name names, lets just say that it happens to share the same name as an American car company..heh heh)

We arrived, and was promptly seated.  Our server Tina (fake name) brought us the big bowl of chips and some salsa…Our friend arrived about 10 minutes later and we placed our order.   Tina brought more drinks, more chips and more salsa.  We had ordered some Guac as an appetizer……and Tina brought us more drinks, more chips and more salsa.  We asked about the guac and she said it was coming. (tick tick tick)  So we kept eating chips and salsa and drinking soda.  Pretty soon I saw Tina coming with a tray! Hurray, our guacamole!…NOPE…two more bowls of salsa.  (we had been waiting now for over a 1/2 hour)

Mr Chick flagged Tina down and asked to cancel our Guac, and she somehow finagled us to keep the order because it was going to be “right up”. tick…tick…tick…By now we had 45 minutes under our belt and all we had before us was an empty tray of chips, 6 bowls of salsa, and enough soda inside of me to float a ship.  This time I flagged Tina down and told her we were CANCELLING the Guac and it was to be taken off the bill. She apologized and said it was very busy and our food would be out “in a few minutes”….but half the tables were empty so I wasn’t buying this.

(an aside)  Pharmacy Chick was a waitress in her early days…I will warn all my readers, that when a server tells you that your food will be ready in “only a few minutes”, its server-speak for “we just got it started cuz we forgot your order and we trying to buy time”.

Tick …..tick….tick. 

I checked my watch. The 3 of us had been there for 55 minutes, and all we had eaten was chips and salsa.  In that entire time we had seen NO actual meals come from the kitchen.  It was nearly 8 o’clock,  we still had a 45 minute drive home, and I had enough!

I told Mr C,  “Dear, put $5 on the table for the drinks,   I have waited long enough, we are leaving..and we are leaving NOW”.  The 3 of us got up, and without a word, left the restaurant.

We went to the hamburger joint across the street and had a burger and a shake.

I may write a letter.

Tags: non pharmacy stuff, personal life | |

It was a day out of the pharmacy and I made a few random observations:

On my walk was a couple of teenagers.  One was wearing a chunky pair of glasses….with no lenses.   Ive worn glasses for 40 years.  I wouldn’t wear them as a fashion choice…but if YOU choose do, I think lenses might give them more cred.

It was in the 40’s for most of the day today…and I saw a girl wearing short shorts and flip-flops… WTF?

It was just weird being at the bowling alley today and watching a woman in a Saree bowling.

I sang outloud to ABBA’s SOS music video at the same bowling alley.  If I had children, they would have died of embarassment for sure.

We brushed the dogs today…I am convinced my dogs are nothing but nose, butt and hair!

I found out my friends daughter sent over 6000 txts last month. 

If that was my daughter, she wouldn’t have a phone THIS month….or next month either.

Tomorrow I am going to learn now to pressure wash a drive way….unless I can convince MR chick to do it…

I am very good at convincing..

Tags: general junk, non pharmacy stuff, personal life | |

Ok, you know that face you get when you put something into your mouth and IMMEDIATELY regret it?  Yea, THAT ONE.  Hold that thought for a sec.

Pharmacy Chick has been a mission to maintain her health.  I wrote about me losing weight this summer and (woo hoo) I haven’t gained a single pound of it back.  I walk 3-4 times each week on this 2.6 mile loop around my neighborhood, play tennis 2-3 days a week and eat my food more cautiously than I used to.  I even started taking some vitamins, including Calcium (at Mr Chicks insistence since I HATE milk..it makes me cough.)    I also take about 4000 u of D-3 each day. 

I also decided to jump on the Omega-3 bandwagon.Mr Chick takes Omega-3 every day.  My Calcium is this wonderful gummy-creme chewy thing I love.  When I saw they had Omega-3 too, I took the bait (no pun intended).  It said “all the benefit of Omega-3 without the fishy taste”.  It too was a gummy kind of formulation.

So I tried it.  RE READ THE FIRST SENTENCE OF THIS POST.

Aaaack!  All I can say is imagine sweet fruity flavored fish.  I pawned them off on Mr Chick.  He’s not eating them either.

Liars.

Tags: non pharmacy stuff, personal rant | |

For some unknown reason, Pharmacy Chick filled about 4 prescriptions today for people preparing for their spring break.  I have to commend these individuals for actually PLANNING ahead, usually an anomaly for the general public, so whoo hoo to you!.

My tech and I got to talking about the anual spring break phenomena that many Americans have come to love. I personally have no understanding of this springtime exodus.  In the state I grew up in, we had no spring break in grade school, jr high or high school.  WE had  a long Easter weekend. Thats it. Once I got to college, I got to experience this “spring break” that everybody yaks about, but for me, there was certainly  no “break” in Chickville.  I hopped on the 1:20 bus back  home and by 5 pm I was often already in my work clothes at the Dairy Queen. 

I kid you not.  I was spring BROKE.  I needed money and the lofty idea that I would spend the week frolicking on some beach in Mexico, or screaming my head off on the rollercoaster at Disney World was as unrealistic as my sprouting wings and flying under my own power.  I would pick up shifts at the steak house I used to work at in high school or I’d make ice cream cones at DQ.  Once I became an intern, I’d work  for $4.10 an hour filling rx’s all week.  What is MY intern going to do over spring break?   GO TO FRIGGIN HAWAII.  Oh, and just so you wouldn’t think I was lazy, I would fill rx’s during the day AND do the Dairy Queen at night. Now that is a brain trip!

And basically the same thing applied to the Christmas holiday too.  I essentially would work from the night I got home until the day before I went back to school.  Mom and dad worked hard to help out with the tuition.  I wouldn’t even want to see their expression if I asked to VACATION during spring break when they couldn’t vacation PERIOD.

Times change apparently.  During the Christmas break, my intern (who initially said he wanted as many hours as we could give him) completed exactly 2 shifts in 2 weeks, but managed a trip to Phoenix to hang out.  Sadly… I had scheduled him…not as extra help but as regular help to relieve the corporate scheduler who was burdened by covering my tech who is out with medical treatment.    yea, that worked out well. 

My phone message went something like this ” Hey Chick, this is Mike, your intern  (like I needed reminding).  I’m not coming in this week, as my wife and I are going to see her folks in Phoenix”  “yea, sorry about that”..*click*.

Parents pack up their kids and haul them to exotic destinations, and for some, this 9 day period isn’t even enough.  My neighbor is taking their kids out of school 3 days early so they can jet out of here sooner.  Cabo, Orlando, Miami, San Diego, Acapulco, Hawaii…

My children (had I given birth to any) would have been the unluckiest children on the planet.  They would have had the same kind of spring breaks I had. And hopefully, learned a lot more about responsibility and accountability in the real world.

Now,  would you like that cone dipped in chocolate?

Tags: non pharmacy stuff, personal life | |

This is a completely non pharmacy post today. Occasionally I need to spout off on something and today’s subject is “sneaky little maneuvers”.  We are all getting used to getting less for more in today’s economy I suppose.  We pay a fortune for everything it seems. We open packages and find 60% air in the box. Package sizes are getting sneakingly smaller and smaller,and yet the prices are either slithering upwards or staying the same..with net effect STILL being ….getting less product for more money. 

Ok I suppose I can put ONE reference to pharmacy in this post with the advent of 90 count packages that USED to be 100 count packages and are priced EXACTLY the same.  They haughtily call these “unit of use” packages and tout the “ease” of using them.  Ok. sure buddy.

But back to my own observations.  Being a woman (duh) I have certain needs that a man wouldn’t ever dream of, namely certain sanitary products.  Never in my marriage have I asked Mr Chick to purchase these items for me for surely it would be a collossally dumb move to ask him to do so.    God knows what he would come home with even if I gave him a photograph and the UPC code!  Over the years I have stayed with the same product even if it becomes a goose chase to find it.  This company has changed its packaging so many times I have lost count.  But what has bothered me the most is the fact they have changed what goes INSIDE the packaging just as much.  Lets start with quantity.  It used to be the standard size for this sanitary product (SP, for short) was 30.  Then it became 27…then 25…and now 22.   They come in multiple absorbency levels and I choose the greater ones.  As the package size changed so did the product heft.  Once I opened them and thought “geez, these seem rather flimsy.”  Being the pharmacist that I am I took one from the old box and a new one and put it on my Torsion Balance (might as well use it for something) and found to my dismay that it weighed a lot less than it used to.  Not only am I getting FEWER number of SP but I also get LESSER absorbency than before.  SUCKS…..but for the same money.

Moving on.

I also buy TP by the truckload.  Call me a product of my parents, but they used to do the same thing.  Of course they had a store room the size of a bedroom for such stuff, but habits die hard.  I just buy as much as the cubby for my TP will hold and I dont have to buy it for a long time.  We also have 2 guest bathrooms and I stuff the under-sink area full of TP for them too.  I recently had to replenish the house with TP and when I pulled out a recent roll, I noticed something unusual.  ( now mind you, I already noticed over the years that the rolls are smaller. A Triple roll now is the same square foot as a “double” roll was a few years ago)  What I noticed THIS time was the roll seemed squatter and shorter.  I went into the guest bath where some older rolls still resided and sure enough these new rolls were a full 1/4 inch shorter in width. 

Now THAT is a sneaky maneuver if there ever was one.  Not only are we getting less sheets per roll but now we get less inches per sheet. I had always believed that TP width was sacrosanct!   A standard.. Fixed and unchangeable!

Ice cream doesnt’ come in half gallon anymore..it comes in 1.75 quarts.  Orange juice containers contain less,  Cereal boxes are the same size but have less IN them.  Canned goods instead of being 12 ounce cans, may have 10.75 ounces.  We are becoming a nation of fractions…airy packaging and fake bottoms in boxes.

OH, I suppose the same could be said for PBM’s.  We have one major player who decided THIS year that they will pay for only a 30 days  supply of meds instead of 34 in 2009….and all for the same copay.

I guess their president went to school with the TP guy.

Tags: general junk, non pharmacy stuff, rambling, ranting | |

Well, Pharmacy Chick is hoping her Dell Hell nightmare is over. I got my new computer, got the files transferred onto it and so far its working fine.  To some, I may have been rather persistent in making sure I got what I wanted as far as the replacement goes, but I am pleased with the results at this time. 

Its black and not the sleek red I had before but I suppose I can live with that.  I got xp put on the unit with an upgrade to win-7 which I chose do do at the get-go.  I took it to a “Nerd” and he got it all set up for me. 

Lets just hope it keeps on keeping on!

The Chick!

Tags: non pharmacy stuff, personal life | |

Since my last post I have had one more motherboard installed.  It ended up worse than the first one.  At this moment I have a cherry red laptop doorstop, and am writing on Mr. Chick’s computer.  Dell decided to replace my unit and at this time I am waiting for them to “locate a compatible computer” whatever the hell that means.   My guess is they are going thru their inventory and seeing what computer they want to give me that is similar to my own.  Fair enough I can accept that.  I specifically asked for NO VISTA but they cannot guarantee it.  That part I cannot accept.  I told them I will send it back.  Its a frustrating venture to say the least to have this kind of hassle with a computer to begin with.  When motherboard #2 went in the computer wouldn’t even boot anymore. 

I will stand my ground on this one.   I bought a unit of my choosing and paid a tidy sum  for it.  I believe I should have a unit of MY choosing as a replacement.  I am not asking for some fancy XPS or top of the line Lattitude.  I got a Vostro 2510 with XP PRO with a lot of bells and whistles and that is what I want back only with Windows 7 instead of Vista, since XP is not an option.. why I do not know.

Too much to ask for?   I hate to be the pest..but I will be if I have too.  I always try to look out for the best interest of my customers when I do business.  I’d like Dell to do the same for me too.  

We will see.

Tags: general junk, non pharmacy stuff, personal life | |

Pharmacy chick checked out for a week and went home to visit her dad.  I needed some R&R and needed to see how things were at home.  Because he lives in a small midwest town, about 800 miles away, I decided to fly.  There is a huge difference between flying in a major market and a small market.  I’ll take the small market every time.

1.  The airport:  In my city, I am thrown into the cauldron of the great unwashed.  Herded like cattle (MOOOOO) thru roped areas for tickets, luggage and then security, throngs of people meet the scrutiny of unsmiling TSA people with their raised eyebrow stares and their little blue flashlight. It must be a magic flashlight because it scrutinizes my drivers license, and if it passes muster, I get to move on.  If it doesn’t…well I don’t wanna know. I suspect I am going to jail or taken away for a full body cavity strip search by Helga the TSA supervisor.  In the small town airport, there is 1 security line. It opened about 10 minutes before we were supposed to board, and the Pilot was ahead of me.. note to self..if HE doesn’t get thru, there isn’t much reason for me to even try.

2. The Plane:  Going to the small town, everybody on the plane looked the same…a bunch of lilly white people wearing jeans and sweatshirts.  They either lived there, used to live there, or were visiting relatives from there.   When I flew back and changed planes in the hub city, it  looked like a meeting of the United Nations on that plane. I sat next to an Indian man who smelled like curry and across from me was an Asian lady scolding her toddler in Chinese.    On the way over, the plane was half empty, but after we made our Hub city transfer on the return flight, we were delayed because apparently there was one more passenger standing on the plane than there was seats to place him.  Whups.  Glad it wasn’t MY seat in contention.  You’d need a crow bar to pry me out of my seat thank you. I am going home on THIS flight.

On the short leg of the journey (30 minutes) , the flight attendants zoom thru the cabin tossing 25 calorie snacks and glasses of water. They zoom thru 10 minutes later to collect everything “regardless of their contents”, and we land.  Our pilot was a game show host in a previous life, I am convinced.  During the safety demonstration he said something I hadn’t heard before and it went something like this:  If we have a loss of cabin pressure the masks will fall down..yada yada yada…if you are in the lavatory, there is a YELLOW TAB FOR YOU TO GRASP AND THE MASK WILL RELEASE..GRAB THE MASK AND PLACE IT ON YOUR FACE.

I being the CHICK, I worked that concept over in my head.  If i was on a plane that was losing cabin pressure the last friggin place I’d want to be would be the toilet. Chances are, I’d be with my pants down, with no seat belt and tossed around like a rag doll.  The last thing I’d likely find is that yellow TAB.  I began to wonder..would they look for my body in the bathroom in the rubble of the plane?  And, if they do, would they laugh when they found my body? “Hey Joe, come over here and catch a gander of this…this chick has no pants on!…but she managed to get the mask on!    It nearly became reality when we had turbulence from hell for the first half-hour.  Since I knew I had nothing but work/stress/ and employee hassles  to return to the next day, the idea of dying on a flight and moving to heaven actually appealed to me for a moment.  The pilot handled the plane like the PRO he is and we landed safely. Good thing the TSA let him thru security.

3. Rental cars.  In the big city, we get off the plane, find our way to the staging area for all the rental car busses. Everybody sizes up everybody else when the bus comes…who gets on first…and more importantly, who gets OFF first and into the rental line.    You then spend 45 minutes in line getting the car you already spent 45 minutes ONLINE reserving (whats up with that anyway??) going over everything you already did online. Once you sign your life away, you may leave with your car.  There are acres of cars to choose from and you are free to argue with your spouse over whether you want the blue one, red one or the black one with the white stripe. In a small town, you find the white phone that says “Ron’s rental cars” and pick it up.  Ron answers the phone and says “Be right up!”.  He picks you up in an unmarked mini van and drives you to a converted closet  at one of the motels near the airport.  There are 6 cars.  5 of them are rented.  You get the ONE sitting there.   There is no razor wired fenced yard.  There is no “do not drive backwards over strip” sign.  Ron flips you the key and says..”see you Saturday”. 

Ironically, when I returned the car,  There was a sign at the “office”.  Be right back. if you have an emergency, dial 555 123-4567.  I didn’t have an emergency, so I waited.  Apparently “right back” is relative…30 minutes later I was sensing “emergency”. I had a flight to catch.  I dialed the number and Ron answered the phone. “Ill send Stan right down”.  Stan was rounding up cars at the airport.  God only knows where Ron was. He arrived in his own car so we used my rental car…that I was told to bring to the hotel INSTEAD of the airport, and drove it to the airport. Okay…more work for Stan.

4. The counter help:  In the big city,  I used curbside check in, handed off my luggage and bid it adieu.  Hopefully I will see it again. Its a long way from the curb to  the plane. There are over a hundred places for those bags to end up lost.  In the small town, the same girl printed my ticket, moved my luggage, and then raced upstairs to board me on the plane.  There is 3 planes at the entire airport. Only 1 of them is flying out in the next 4 hours.  I assume its mine!.

I also played some golf on my trip. I went to the small town muni course.  I came in unannounced ( a no-no in a big city) and asked “can I play?” and was greeted with “YUP, 10 bucks…first tee is by the sign o’er there… see ya”. And I was off.  The next day we played a big resort course.  The tee sheet was full. Good thing I had a tee time..there would be NO walk-on’s, and no “Yup, 10 bucks” here!

There are no traffic jams in small town USA.  There is no reason to worry about “crossing traffic” to make a left turn.  For most people HOME and WORK are moments away and the idea of a commute is completely foreign.  If you get a half hour lunch, there is time to drive home, eat and go back.  I visited a friend I used to work with 30 years ago.  He lives in a smaller town.  I live in this huge metropolis.  I have access to a million more stores, cultural events, museums and activities than he ever will.  He has it made.  I hate it here.  I’d trade him in a minute.  I spent 2 evenings with his family.  My heart ached about leaving town again.

I wish I had never left “home”.   I’m a highly paid but over stressed professional working for a huge company who wouldn’t care if I dropped dead tomorrow as long as I did it on my own time.  I feel the pull of simplicity and smallness.  I am tired of the complicated…tired of traffic reports…tired of  everything being so far away. I am weary. I dont need half the stuff I have.  I don’t even want much of it anymore. 

Moving now would be like trying to uproot and transplant a Redwood, especially where Mr Chick is concerned.  He is happy where he is.

Pharmacy Chick would leave like a prisoner set free if given the chance. All I need…is that chance.

Tags: letting you in to my life, non pharmacy stuff, personal life | |

We Todd did

Im Sofa King

We Todd did.

( my apologies to the sensitive readers)

Tags: having fun, non pharmacy stuff | |

I started this post a few weeks ago, then filed it away in “drafts”.  Recently a member on my blog roll wrote a similar post.  Its either supreme coincidence or telepathic plagarism, and considering the fact he neither knows me or cares that he is on my blogroll, I am going with coincidence.

It started with an “invitation” from my cousin.  She wanted to be my “friend” and invited me to do so by clicking on a link.  Funny, I had always figured we were friends so I didn’t see why I needed to click on a link to confirm so.  Nevertheless I did and it launched me to Facebook.  Since being her friend involved me signing up to be on Facebook also, I backed out and forgot all about it….till she invited me again, with a little more personal note extolling the virtues of Facebook. ”we can keep up at our leisure!”

 What the he**, fine, I’ll jump in and join the group. I figured it might be a cute way to keep in touch with my cousin and her family.

And then….I mentioned it to one of my friends from church…”OH! you’re on Facebook?”  “You can be my friend too!”.  Soon she invited me to be her friend…and then there were 2.

Here’s the interesting thing about Facebook (FB):  any friend can see a list of all your friends. 

 Apparently my church loves FB. Everybody who goes to my church, has ever been to my church, or has ever driven by my church has a FB page. And since Friend-2 added me, all of HER friends saw ME.  Whoa,  within about 24 hours, I had something like 30 friend requests.  The odd thing was, that I didn’t know all of these people…let me rephrase that…I knew OF these people, but not personally met all of them. But they are my friend now. I am up to 43.

Since I updated some school information, I noticed that FB offered me some “people I might know”.  Up until recently, I ignored this by focusing on those people who ASKED to be my friend and finding a few family members, most of which were on Mr Chick’s side of the family.  Apparently most of MY family hasn’t discovered FB.  One evening I succumbed and looked at some of FB’s suggestions.  Most of which were classmates from high school,  the POPULAR kids.

One thing you might wanna know about Pharmacy Chick:  she was not among this group.  Having no money, no car of my own, and being gifted with intelligence but not looks (apparently), I was part of the great-unwashed. I scanned thru these FB people and still had that same awkward uncomfortable feeling I had too many years ago.  I went thru high school on the fringe, moving anonymously from class to class, getting educated, but never breaking into their group. Graduating was huge for me. I was done..good bye..never to return.

I did however find one gal that was sort of a friend of mine in school.  We roomed together on some school trips and while she was definitely one of the popular kids, she would at least remember me.  I asked her to be my friend, and a couple of days later, I received acknowledgement that she had confirmed it.  Great!. I sent her a message with the basic content of: “hey, whats up, its been about 30 years, love to catch up with ya, let me know and I’ll send you more info!”  Well, its been almost a month, and no answer.

One person asked to be my friend. A most unconventional guy in school, best described as fringe/funky/musical type, I had no idea he even knew I existed, and I told him that. “We didn’t exactly have the same circle of friends” I wrote. “As it turns out, I didnt have a circle of friends” was his reply. I am not completely sure what he was saying, but we are now Facebook friends.  He seems perfectly delightful, and lives about 2 hours away.

Its been a long intro to this part of the story:

He went to the 20th class reunion and posted pictures…a lot of them.  I have gone to MR Chick’s reunions because he loved his youth.  I have vowed to never attend one of mine.  I envision myself sitting in an auditorium decorated with school colors, holding a glass of punch talking to….Mr. Chick. I don’t think I am too off the mark either. I looked at all the pictures he posted and they were pretty much all the people I was never friends with: The football players, cheerleaders, class officers, popular kids, etc. 

I made the right decision. I took out my Class year book the other day and scanned the pictures.  It had been many years since I opened that book..

What surprised me was how the photos still evoked the same uncomfortable emotions..30 years later. Its not like I have dwelled on it. I rarely if ever think about high school, but clearly they remain. Its weird.

I don’t miss that part of my life because there wasn’t much to miss I guess.  I appreciate my new funky friend for posting the pictures. It was an affirmation that moving on was the right thing for me, and going back is not an option.

FB, for me, will be an avenue to keep up with my present. My past can lie fairly undisturbed.

Do you have any Facebook stories you’d like to tell?

Tags: non pharmacy stuff, personal life | |