Monday, October 25, 2010

uh, this is uh...fucked up? booo!

You all know what’s going on over here? You want to know how Monday starts for the Kelly household this week? Pink eye! It’s like being at chong’s house, with all the bloodshot eyes and eyedrops and shades drawn and everything. Only instead of bongs and spliffs and topless chicks, we’ve got puzzles and stuffed animals and cut up apples and chicks with their beavers out (I hired them to act as sort of waitress/nanny/slaves to improve everyone’s mood for the duration of the malady). It’s actually not as awesome as it sounds, though it’s real close.

They say that pink eye is caused by bacteria getting into the eye, and if films like “Knocked Up” have taught me anything, it’s that the bacteria in question comes from the human ass/turd/poo vapors (or ‘farts’ if you’re a doctor), but here it seems more like it came from our baby. She’s the patient zero in this house and I can only speak for myself, but I haven’t farted in the baby’s face in like, a month, so I’m guessing she must have picked it up on the streets somewhere. Sometimes, just for fun, we’ll be walking along and I’ll just kind of throw her at a passerby just to see the reaction. It’s pretty funny. I’m trying to teach my older kid to snatch their wallets while these pedestrians are frantically trying to safely catch my airborne baby, but so far all he does is cry and scream “no daddy! Quit hurting baby!” He’s a real pansy.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s where the pink eye came from. Stupid, dirty, shit-eyed pedestrians. I took the baby into the baby mechanic to get her looked over on Saturday morning, and aside from the place being a complete fucking zoo (full of snotty kids that probably all have pink eye now [take that, densely populated part of the world!]) they prescribed her a tiny little thimbleful of antibiotic eyedrops that cost (get this!) eighty bucks! Now, thanks to the highly contagious nature of pink eye (and our family’s natural tendency to wipe our butts and then hold the toilet paper up to our eyes for a second) we’re all looking at the little tiny stash of eyedrops like a bunch of cokeheads eyeing that last corner of the baggie. If I have to go get another one of those fuckers, I’m gonna lose my mind (although I went to a very friendly, all gay pharmacy that I can’t recommend highly enough. It’s in the building with the REI on Halsted just south of the new apple store and it offers free home delivery. And did I mention that it’s entirely staffed by extremely courteous gay dudes? Oh, I did? Good. Well, it is. Anyway…).

It’s gotten me to thinking about how entirely fucked up the notion of not having regulation on prescription drug prices is. I mean, if you really want to look at the effects of free market capitalism on the patient/drug manufacturer’s relationship, there’s absolutely nothing stopping these folks from completely raping sick people. Okay, the notion here is that you can charge whatever someone is willing to pay for your product, right? Well, if your product is the difference between me living and dying, or being sick for the rest of my life, or not getting this herpes flare-up to go down in time for the next gathering of the Juggalos, you’ve got me completely by the balls. You could clean out my bank account for a tube of Zovirax or some eye drops or some penicillin or whatever it is that cures whatever it is that I’m gonna get next.

I guess that’s why cancer ends up being either the death of your body or the death of your finances. It seems crazy. The entire medical profession is governed by moral law first and foremost, with the Hippocratic oath and all that, but the administrators, the pharm companies and the price fixers, in stark contrast, operate in an atmosphere completely bereft of any morality whatsoever. I’m with Sarah Palin: we should just go up to Canada for our drug needs.

Oh, and going to Mexico for your drug needs is also highly recommended. They’ve got ‘doctors’ right there in the pharmacy that will prescribe you vicodin or valium or oxycontin or whatever (not that you should be taking those things if you’re not in acute mental or physical pain, folks!), and the shit’s cheap. Apparently they’ve also got people who sell drugs right there on the beaches and stuff. Now THAT’S classy! If I had pink eye down there, I’d just cruise out to the beach and be like “Reuben, put down those brochures for snorkeling and hook a brother up with some of those antibiotic eyedrops, eh?” And I bet Reuben would even set me up with a discount if I was staying in the hotel that he stood in front of, or if I promised to do his whale watching tour or something. That would be cool.

As is, I’m stuck here in quarantine and all I want is a fucking cheeseburger. I’m thinking Windy City Gyros. That’s the best cheap burger around these parts for my money.
Whatever. I’m out.
xoxoxoxox

19 comments:

Candice said...

usually "pink eye" is viral and doesn't need any meds. hope you didn't get hosed.

Scott said...

a friend of mine is a pharmacist and makes far more money that he should. He actually complains about people that have the "regulated" drug cards from welfare or medicare and even about people that have cheap insurance because he cannot charge them full price and it "eats into the pharmacy's bottom line" makes me wish he would learn that not everyone makes 6 figures filling bottles and giving flu shots.

Jayzilla said...

i heard that gainesville is real good for pink eye...

TheMEATBOSS said...

haha farting in the babies face, classic

Bridgett said...

I have a prescription that I pay fifty bucks a month for. If I didn't have the very nice insurance that I do, it'd be over two hundred. I just think it's nice to know that, living in the north 'burbs around all these rich kids, I could sell two pills of my thirty day supply and have made that $50 back.

erica! said...

The other day at my job we had a lady with 6 kids pile out of an ambulance because they had pink eye. It's a real epidemic in KC because we love to give each other butterfly kisses as a regular greeting. KC is adorable like that. (note sarcasm)

Sean said...

before Knocked Up I had no idea pink eye was spread through the E. coli in poo particles

Anonymous said...

I've got nothing

Jimmy Collyer said...

I've got this hilarious video of german death metal a capella http://www.metalinjection.net/tv/view/5397/death-metal-a-capella

AndyPolhamus said...

Scott, you're right. Pharmacists and everybody else in the medical industry is making too much money. Somebody should put forth a bill that would revolutionize American health care and make it easier for people of limited financial means to get treated. I mean, it makes sense; I'm sure it'll work, right? Oh, wait...

Candice said...

not everyone in the medical industry makes too much money.

Unknown said...

I got pink eye once. I was 17 and I had an afternoon/summer nannying gig. The four year old got it. Then I got it and didn't go to work again until it worked it's way out of that family. At the time, I had insurance with really good prescription coverage so I didn't have to shell out a week's worth of wages on antibiotics.

But I did request that they reimburse me for all of the things I had to toss out since it is so fucking contagious. Oh and they paid me for the week that I took off while it made its round through the baby, the older kid, and both parents.

limited nobility said...

do yooooooou not make a ton of money candice?are u like iiinnn the medical industry but youre not making a buncha money but youre gonna be a doctor just not now....soon.....soon....pretty soon....maybe now....ya just dont/WONT make what you thought u......u gonna be a doctor?......you referring to u cause youre in the medical.....fieeeeeeld..is that why u knew viral things dont need meds or did u just sleep last night...well they do just not this......you were/are talking about you riiight?///?/?get me caught up!are people proud?people!...."not everyone"....beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeks......Anyone here wanna leave me be while I watch the zingers etc with virtual visor and co this wkend?

Candice said...

you are so perceptive.

boringdan said...

limited_nobility... first off, sweet screen name. Secondly, aren't there about a million other sites/blogs/forums out there that are all about being an anonymous dick to people?

limited nobility said...

Dan I am actually involved in every single forum that you ALLUDED to(albeit anonymously but occasionally with ever cooler screen names)check me out as "Mormon Nailer" over at totalpunk.org for instance.Norman Mailer fudged around with a bit.see what I did there?......don't you hate it when people say that?uhcourse you dont.ohhhh.anyway who the fuck are you?

Sean said...

... I always figured limited nobility, virtual visor, and that "Professor guy" were the same person.

Either way, it's the exact same little bit.

Robb said...

Sean - I always figured V visor, professor naazty, and minor sock-sensation Francis gyno-titz were all me, writing under unbelievably hilarious pseudonyms, during mysterious blackouts that I'm just kidding about. I always figured ltd nobility is in fact an actual person who isn't me but who I know and--in a total subversion of internet cliche--is actually even better looking than me and arguably you, despite lacking an avatar. And I always figured you, T Geiger and Xavier Samuel were all completely different dudes who share some vague physical similarities. Oooops I've gone n spilled the beanz in a markedly austere way! sowwy beeex

Anonymous said...

i got pink eye after I had a seizure at the train station in new Brunswick, NJ and landed face-down on the platform. I am positive at least one homeless person has used that exact spot as a toilet in the past. Yeeeech. It was disgusting and really rather painful. Take the antibiotic drops, when they start to hurt your head then stop taking them... that's what I was told at least. Good luck and feel better :\