Thursday, August 30, 2007

Our Health System is Cool

So I was at Duane Reade and I was filling a prescription, well actually, buying some Vicodin (who’s the life of the party now, eh?) because I really hurt my knee* and my doctor is a pretty and generous man on Park Avenue and well, I hadn’t had such a prescription ever really, and I figured that it would be sort of hard to get (nope) or fill (nope). In fact, it was filled while I flipped through a magazine (Guns & Ammo followed by Teen Beat, natch) and the lady rang me up and the prescription total, for 20 pills of what is basically a controlled substance was…


Take a guess. I’ll wait.



63 cents! So I’m standing there, well sort of hopping on one foot because of that knee injury and she just says, okay, that’ll be sixty three cents and I instinctively look around the store, as if Ashton Kutcher is going to jump out or something (we totally dated) and she looks even more annoyed (than she did to begin with) that I’m taking too much time and I’ve been living off my debit card for about a week and was planning on slapping down like five bucks per pill (or is that Viagra?) and I was just sort of leaning forward with my eyes all big and I had to say, oh um, is that right? Because my health plan is really, really budget (thanks, sweatshop employer) and that doesn’t seem right, right? And don’t you need to ask me if I’m over a certain age because on a good day I could pass for seventeen and on a bad day, fourteen, and don’t you have to ask me if I really need this?

And she narrows her eyes to my widened ones and is all giving me this look like who went to pharmacology school here (“that would be me, not you, Gimpy”) and simply repeated what she had said before (“sixty three cents and sign here”) and I asked then, oh may I please use my debit card and she shrugged like it was no big deal. So in effect, I just filled a prescription for a sort of serious drug for sixty three cents with no ID which I paid for on my debit card.


Take that, Canada.

*Man, I’ve got to get me some more knee injuries. This is great!

4 comments:

m said...

so that's how drug dealers make bank. pay only 63 cents for 20 pills and sells each pill for 5 bucks. ooo automatic business. haha. jk.

ps. hope you feel better.

Anonymous said...

Wow, I've heard so many horror storied about your health care system that I've become accustomed to my home country being thought of as the land of opportunity where morphine and medicinal marijuana flow free and the streets are paved in clean needles for drug addicts.....

Looks like we have some competition here.

Good luck with your knee, feel better!

Ha Ha Sound said...

Vicodin rocks. Love that stuff.

Hope you feel better.

Anonymous said...

That post was lovely and drug-ridden in so many ways.