Living in DC
I go to take my prescription medication two nights ago (hours after picking it up from my health plan's pharmacy) and I notice: the tablets that are normally LARGE and ORANGE are tiny and blue. Last night, after work, I go back to the pharmacy and show them what they gave me. The woman behind the counter shakes her head and gives me a sideways grin that says "boy do we have some winners working here." Probably the wrong image they want to portrary. She goes back into the stacks of drugs and two minutes later returns with the head pharmacist. He hands me a bottle of the correct medication, then asks "you have receipt?"
"No."
"I want to give you something for your trouble. Look. You take Tylenol?"
"Huh?"
"You take Tylenol?"
I look down at his hand, and he's holding out a bottle filled with some type of analgesic. He's showing it to me like a drug dealer shows a kilo*.
"No, I don't want Tylenol."
"Then how about lotion?"
He reaches behind and pulls a tube off the shelf.
"Maybe some hand cream?" he asks, with the same drug-dealer confidence.
"No. I don't want anything. I just want to go home."
"I want to give you something."
"Just tell your people back there to pay attention to what their doing!"
What I want to know is, can I sue them? And, if I can, and I collect, can I then retire?

*Not that I have practical knowledge regarding those sorts of transactions.

The Bland Health People

I hate the Bland Health People. You know who I'm talking about. The people frolicking in prescription drug commercials and bouncing around the pages of your medical plan's quarterly magazine. They're all ages and all races and all sexes (well maybe not ALL sexes) and all so very very... bland. They wear sweaters and ride bikes in their golden years through the perfect autumn woods, they cavort in perfectly turquoise pools, they throw daisies about and sit down to healthy and uncontroversial dinners. You never see any of them actually USING the medications they're representing - they're never standing in their boxers, in the kitchen, rinsing out a glass and measuring out the one or two horse pills they have to swallow. They never throw up, or sneeze, or bleed, or roll around in agony after being thrown from a horse. They never sit uncomfortably on the edge of the examination table, shifting their weight on the crinkly paper, trying to relieve the cramping in their knees as they wait for the physician's assistant or nurse practitioner. And they're never, EVER in the hospital. Not like the real people you see on House or E.R.