Category: General Nonsense, Pointless Digressions || By

We interrupt these tedious mutterings about the Mon-Fayette Expressway to bring you a story about another useless, slimy and painful annoyance in the Mon Valley --- mainly my cold.

Having migrated from my head to my throat to my chest, I thought the dreaded lurgy was on its way out until I woke up early this morning with my left eye stuck shut.

The germs decided to crawl back up my tear ducts and turn into conjunctivitis.

I never had "pink eye" when I was a kid, but now that I'm an alleged "grown-up" I've had it twice. Perhaps I'll be working through other childhood diseases soon. Maybe my crankiness is actually colic. Maybe my baldness is actually cradle cap.

I waited until 10 o'clock to call my doctor, who --- bless his heart --- called me back within five minutes. I won't mention his name, but if you're looking for a general practitioner in McKeesport, email me, and I'll recommend him privately.

He really is a great doctor, and I don't say that just because he bought my book. If you can't afford the operation, he touches up your X-rays. (Henny Youngman, 1969.)

. . .

Anyway, he prescribed eye drops and a general antibiotic. Now there's a problem.

I deal with a small, independent pharmacy that's been in business since the 1950s. They don't have stuffed animals, makeup, People magazine or ice cream. They have a prescription counter, some hard candy, a rack of sun-faded greeting cards, some pills and salve, and I think some liniment.

When I go into get my prescriptions, I deal directly with the pharmacist or his wife, and if I get a rash or a sniffle, he recommends the right pill or liniment, and he doesn't waste my time trying to sign me up for a frequent customer card, or sell me a digital camera or a Steelers bobble-head.

My pharmacy (again, recommendations available upon request) is open on Sundays, but my health insurance was recently switched. Now --- if I want the insurance to pay for the prescriptions --- I can only go to a certain, large national chain of pharmacies.

The same large national chain of pharmacies also owns the prescription insurance plan.

That doesn't seem like restraint of trade or anti-competitive behavior.

Gee, I'm sure glad we don't have nationalized medicine in the United States, or else the free enterprise system might suffer, and large bureaucracies might tell me where I can shop.

But I digress.

Here's another problem --- I've been boycotting this large chain of pharmacies ever since they filed a so-called "SLAPP" lawsuit against a group of historic preservationists in Homestead.

. . .

Normally, none of this makes a difference, because I continue to shop at my local drug store. I just pay cash. And the medications I usually take aren't very expensive (some allergy pills, an asthma inhaler, and the anti-psychotics that keep me from seeing giant fanged bats or buying Pirates tickets).

But the antibiotics were going to run over $200, so I figured I might as well stick that to the insurance company owned by the fancy-pants national drug store chain.

My doctor called the prescription into the big national pharmacy at 10:15. I drove to the big national pharmacy at 12:30.

Naturally, they still hadn't started working on the prescription --- but if I wanted to shop for stuffed animals, makeup, People magazine or ice cream while I waited, the girl told me, it would take about 20 minutes. And she tried to sign me up for a frequent shopper card.

Oh, I wasn't going to fall for their trickery. I just stood there and stared at her through my one good eye.

Why does a drug store chain get to own its own insurance company? And why wasn't my prescription ready when I got there? Because they wanted me to spend more money in the store.

The whole thing bugs me. But I'll get even with them. For one thing, I'm going to continue my boycott.

Also, I coughed in their ice cream case and rubbed my eyes on the stuffed animals on the way out the door.