Life in GVHT

That would be "Gus Van Horn Time".

My wife is in Chicago until Thursday (meaning, among other things, that I'm cooking gumbo at the moment and plan to smoke a cigar some time in the next couple of days). I had to get a presentation ready for today that took up a big chunk of my weekend. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow at 8:00 am.

So I decided not to change my watch or reset any of the clocks at home to reflect the recent change back to standard time. Why wake up early two days in a row, depriving oneself of the joy of an extra hour's slumber? I decided to save that for Thursday morning.

It's been a long day, and one with much less web browsing than has been usual, so this will be one of those rambling, "random thoughts" type of posts.

Caveat Emptor

I am tempted to start a recurring feature of my blog, like the "Idiot Bumper Sticker" series, but I want to do more than vent here. Besides, I decided to go with "Gus Van Horn" and not the other initial candidate for a pen name, "Sir Bitch-a-Lot". ("Good going, Gus!" you might be thinking. "You've just handed your detractors a devastating nickname." To which I would reply: "No one I know personally does a better job of coming up with nicknames than I do. At least if I do it, the nickname will do me some justice. Besides, 'Sir Bitch-a-Lot' has a certain ring to it. Why let some boob paste me with something lackluster?" To which you'd reply: "Oh yeah!")

But I am not Sir Bitch-a-Lot, so there will be no recurring feature -- though this past week has sorely tempted me to institute it -- called "Gus Van Horn's Laws of Commerce". The general theme of such Murphy-esque laws would go something along the lines of, "No matter how much 'caveating' ole 'emptor' Gus does, the business he patronizes will find some way to screw him anyway."

Like this week. On separate occasions over the span of five days, my (wannabe former) pharmacy: (1) Didn't have an order filled on time that I'd called in three days before. (Justice demands that I do note that my physician gets credit for a crucial assist here.) (2) Gave me the wrong medication. (3) Failed to tell me that the brand-name medication, for which my physician (Yes, the one who helped me get the late refill....) gave me a coupon to cover the co-pay, was no longer covered at all by my insurance. The end result of this was that I was confronted with a bill for $324.00 for a tetracycline derivative! I laughed and told them I'd come back to pick up the generic version for $10.00 when they straightened everything out. Someone competent called me from there the next morning and cleaned up after her co-workers.

Of the three, it's item (2) that really bothers me. I wish I had noted exactly what medication I got instead of the antibiotic for adult acne I was supposed to get. That could have merited (but would have failed to get anyway) some kind of a 'lanche.

Remember: "No matter how much 'caveating' ole 'emptor' Gus does, the business he patronizes will find some way to screw him anyway."

Knowing this, I am in the habit of spelling out my very common, white-bread, (actual) surname when coming to pick up my prescription. I then -- except this once -- spell out my first name, even though it is unusual enough that people both always remember it and crack jokes about it at my expense. Since I go about using my middle name, some even will start calling me by this, my first name, rather than what they used to call me. Fine. Whatever waxes your lance.

Anyway, I spell out my last name and, misreading the look I got from the druggist for comprehension, decide not to spell out my first name.

Guess what? And this is where all by buds over at Ultraquiet No More decide I can't possibly ever have been a submarine officer. I didn't take the simple expedient of glancing over what she handed me. No. I completely brainfarted and even chalked up the $30.00 they charged me to my having probably missed a change in my prescription coverage. I'd call about it tomorrow.

But upon getting home, I did look at the pill bottle and saw -- yes -- a totally different first name and, of course, a completely different medication. To top it all off, my name and the first name on the bottle sound about as much alike as "ass" and 'hole in the ground", including to within the limits of poetic license, the number of syllables in each.

Incensed in addition by my realization that the round trip back to straighten everything out was going to cut into my blogging time, I returned. I retrieved my prescription, the $20.00 overcharge, and the following life lessons: (1) Always spell out both names at the drug store. (2) Always verify -- preferably before you leave the store -- that your name is on the bottle. (3) You could get killed by taking the wrong medication. (I leave empirical verification of that last as an exercise for the reader, specifically the reader who called me a "weird heretic" or words to that effect awhile back.)

Item (3) should get your attention. No need to thank me. Just keep stopping by!

Two Three Quotes Funny in Juxtaposition

So the other day, I saw the following quote from Rush Limbaugh:

I love being a conservative. We conservatives are proud of our philosophy. Unlike our liberal friends, who are constantly looking for new words to conceal their true beliefs and are in a perpetual state of reinvention, we conservatives are unapologetic about our ideals.

When I first heard this, I immediately thought of the following Ann Coulter quote from Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right:

Considering the invective constantly being heaped on the "religious right", it is probably not surprising that few people identify themselves as members. "Religious right" is always something somebody else is, like "son of a bitch". A LexisNexis search of the phrase "religious right" mostly turns up lots of people denying that they belong to it. This could be because there is no such thing as the "religious right". (177)

So I decided to blog it today. And then I remembered the following from Jonathan Carson.

How else can we explain what otherwise appears to be a paranoid fear of an establishment of Christianity despite the near total lack of advocates of a state church?

Not calling a spade does not mean that it isn't a spade....

Yes. It was good!

Took a break in the middle of writing the above to enjoy my gumbo. That commenter said it best: "Cher, Dat do sound soo good!"

Good stuff! Why my wife lets some bad shrimp from her childhood get in the way of enjoying this stuff is beyond me!

OK. It's now 1:00 a.m. GVHT. I may post again if I think I can keep it short. Or I may not.

-- CAV

Updates

4-20-06: Added hypertext anchors.