Oh big pharma, your love is like bad medicine...

Okay, it's time to fill that prescription. But the online pharmacy has changed names three times in the last two years, and you can't seem to logon. One of the three websites recognizes your login id but not your password, except the 'reset' link  doesn't make it easy and just mail you a link- you've got to fill out some form- and that's doomed from the start. Nobody knows what your member id is supposed to be, there are like fifteen numbers on your insurance card. While trying the eight most likely candidates the account gets locked.So you go digging around the site for the phone number, and voilá, there's no phone number - ANYWHERE on the site, just the fill-out-this-page-and-we'll-call-you-never form. Hooray!

Google to the rescue. "INTERNATIONAL PHARMA CONGLOMERATE MEMBER SERVICES NUMBER" has fewer results than you'd imagine, and from there it's a scant twelve minutes reciting numbers, yeses and noes to voice recognition software. I'm not getting sucked back into unlocking the account again. Last time that phone call took just as long ultimately brought me back here- not worth it- because then you have to go back to the website.


Summary:

Phone call: yell refill, recite a long prescription number, yes, no, no, yes, ZIP code, confirm, yes, no, yes, no, no. Confirmation number. Eight minutes.

Website: logon. fail. logon. fail. logon. fail. [phone call] logon, click refill, confirm, lose hope that you'll have to do this all over again soon enough.

safe to say, I hate you

I hate you more than usual today. I dreamed of you again last night… of your absence. You were out and I was just trying to sleep- all your other lovers kept moving around, getting out of bed, packing, moving out, moving in, unpacking, getting into bed. I next tried conversation but all the places I named were long since closed or no longer relevant. I got on my bike and rode home in the dark, in the rain. The cold air made my throat hurt so I woke up, closed the window, adjusted the blanket and did it all over again…