Procuring Drugs Has Become More Difficult

I used my pharmacy's automated system to call in two prescription refills on Friday morning. It was before 8:00. Both of them had refills remaining, so I believed the message that told me they would be ready after 11:00. I get a text once they are done and ready for pickup. When I hadn't received that text by 2:00, I called the pharmacy. 

"Just checking to see if my prescriptions are ready."

"Let me see... No. We are running behind. Our automatic pill-counting machine is down, so it's taking us extra time. I can have your prescriptions ready in about an hour."

"Yes. That will be fine. It will take me that long before I'm in town. Thank you."

In fact, it was only a speedy 50 minutes before I got the text. I was able to pick up my drugs with no problem at their drive-thru window.

Meanwhile, Hick was having his own drug-seeking issue. He has glaucoma, and had just been to the eye doctor on Wednesday for a regular appointment. Hick came home on Friday evening, and immediately thrust his phone into my face.

"I can't get my eye drops at my pharmacy unless I go to this link and update my payment information."

"That sounds sketchy. I don't know about that..."

"Here. Look at it."

"Is that even their website? Maybe it's a scam."

"The gal in the pharmacy sent it to me. I told her no, I'll just pay for it here when it comes in. She said they cain't do that. I'd have to drive to the city to pick it up if I wanted to pay for it in person. I have to go to this link and update it. They they'll send my eye drops here to my pharmacy."

"That's crazy! Let me see what it looks like. Well. It says it's your pharmacy in the URL. The page looks official. It wants your birthdate. That seems sketchy! I guess I'll put it in. Since you got this from the gal at your pharmacy. Okay. Now it wants a type of payment. I guess we'll use the debit card. Read me your numbers..."

I had all the info entered. Then when I hit the DONE button, the screen stalled.

"Here. Take your phone outside, and maybe it will go."

Hick wandered around on the back porch. Then went to the front porch. Then came back in.

"It got this message at the top, in red."

SOMETHING WENT WRONG. PLEASE TRY AGAIN LATER.

"When do you need this medicine?"

"It's no hurry. Just by Monday."

"Well, since they have to SEND IT FROM THE CITY, I guess we'll have to try this again tomorrow or Sunday. So the info will be in Monday, for them to send your medicine down here."

We tried on Saturday morning before 6:00, and the info went through. Of course we had to enter it all again.

These newfangled ways are almost harder than when an old granny-lady foraged in the woods for roots and herbs to grind with a mortar and pestle.

Walking Papers Might Be in Order

Hick talked to Realtor Guy on the phone Friday. Realtor Guy still had no new information. He said he had sent an email to The Buyer's Realtor earlier in the day, and was supposed to hear something by that evening. I don't know if he actually did, or not.

Hick had called to tell Realtor Guy that the work on the Bargain House windows was completely finished. It cost us another $200, because one of the windows was a different size, and needed other parts than the ones that worked for the other two windows. Hick said he will also get a bill for the second "house call" for the repairs. But that the windows are done.

Realtor Guy sent Hick a message later, thanking him for being patient, and acting in a professional manner to complete his part of the agreement for the contract on Bargain House. He also said that he had told The Buyer's Realtor that he expects a closing date and time by the end of the day Friday, April 25. If there is no closing date scheduled by then, 

WE ARE WALKING! The deal is off!

Thevictorian triumvirate agrees with this tactic. Bargain House has been tied up now, waiting on a closing date, since March 8. It needs to go back on the market if The Buyer and his so-called realtor can't get it together. As The Pony says, the families with school-age kids who are looking to buy a house will be ready to view properties and get a deal done over the next few months. 

We're not here to hold a house in lay-a-way for a wishy-washy buyer and incompetent realtor.

Hick Gets a Diagnosis Off His Chest

After 18 days of waiting to find out what his nurse practitioner saw in his chest x-ray, Hick finally got an answer. It came from a cardiologist on Thursday. 

"The pressure on my spine is from arthritis. She says I have some blockage in some coronary arteries. That it's not unusual for a man my age, with diabetes and high blood pressure. But she doesn't want to okay me for the surgery until I have a stress test and some other test. She doesn't think there will be time to have that done by next Friday's surgery date. So I'll tell my NP's office to have the surgery re-scheduled."

Which they did, and Hick's surgery will now be in August. He doesn't have a date yet for the stress test or whatever else. This is Hick's rendition from his conversation with the cardiologist. I'm hoping it's fairly accurate. Hick is sometimes an unreliable narrator!

Turns out the MRI that Hick has been harping about, trying so hard to get scheduled, was actually a CT Scan all along! You'd think he might have let that slip at least once, in the 18 days he's been talking about it. But no. He called me after the cardiologist appointment, referring to a CT Scan, and I had to ask if he'd had some other test. Nope.

Anyhoo... we don't feel too concerned about the cardiologist's findings. We'll wait (who knows how long!) to see what the stress test reveals.

House Hold Update

We are still waiting for a closing date for the sale of Bargain House! It seems like this has taken forever. The original closing date was April 6, which was one month after we signed the contract (March 8), which was 16 days after the listing went up.

WHY is this sale still on hold? Hick communicates regularly with our Realtor Guy. Who only knows what The Buyer's realtor tells him. 

At the risk of being a pest, Hick sent a text on Tuesday night, asking Realtor Guy if the house is sold or not. Should we open up the listing? In case this sale doesn't go through?

Realtor Guy replied on Wednesday morning that he was expecting a reply from The Buyer's Realtor later that day. But that if the deal continues to stall with no explanation, we might want to back out of it.

Here's the latest, from Wednesday (April 15) afternoon. Realtor Guy sent Hick a copy/paste of the message he got from The Buyer's Realtor. It went a little something like this:

"The Buyer still wants the house. His financial institution has approved his loan for the house. We are waiting on HUD to approve the contract."

Well. That certainly clears it up, doesn't it? What in the Not-Heaven does that mean??? Will HUD have to send an inspector or an appraiser? Or just look over the contract? It's a federal entity, you know. So nobody can guess how long this process might take.

Meanwhile, it seems like we've sold Bargain House. Right?

Val Should Have Tossed Some Smelling Salts into Her Cart

I made an unscheduled trip to Country Mart on Tuesday. It couldn't wait until Errand Day on Thursday, because I needed SLAW. Hick was grilling some sausage patties (or as I call them: deconstructed bratwursts) that evening, and slaw goes great with them. Besides, I could get my scratchers out of the two machines at the front of the store, rather than my daily trip to the Gas Station Chicken Store.

First I went down the soda aisle, and saw that Hick's Diet Mountain Dew was still on sale 2 for $9.00 on the six-pack bottles. I put two on the side of my cart and continued down and across the back aisle. The cookies are there, and Hick has bemoaned a lack of treats since he finished the Easter cheesecake, and took his bag of shortbread cookies and his snack pies to "work" at the SUS2.5. I got him some strawberry wafer cookies, and a pack of generic iced oatmeal cookies.

The next stop was the produce section, where I picked up a 3-lb bag of Vidalia-style onions, and then the slaw. It was the 44-oz container, for $8.99, which is expensive for slaw, but more economical than the 14-oz container for $3.99. Slaw does not go to waste at our house.

All that was left were the scratchers. I thumbed my nose at protocol, and wheeled my cart with groceries down an empty checkout lane to get my tickets before getting in line to pay for the food. I scanned in my winners at the right side machine, and was picking my tickets when a man walked up to the left machine. I had to wait a couple minutes for him to finish. Which I did politely, behind him by the empty checkouts, not breathing down his neck and sighing heavily.

He finished and went into the aisles, and I got my tickets and went towards the only open checkout. A man was paying, and a woman with a full beeper cart was waiting. As I was turning my cart to get into the line, here comes the Ticket Buyer. He was probably early 40s, in navy blue track pants with a double white stripe, and a white shirt, black hair in a short cut.

"Go ahead." He only had a couple things in his hands.

"No, you can."

"I'm okay." 

I was moving on back before turning my cart into the line when another man walked up. He was 50-ish, in jeans, kind of balding.

"Oh, you can go in front of me."

"Are you sure? I don't have to."

"It's fine. Both of you have less than I do."

Baldy got in line, and I turned in behind him.

"I only need one item."

"I would, too, if it wasn't for my husband, heh, heh!"

Another checker girl came up and opened the next line. She called for people she could help. I told Baldy to go ahead. He was wanting a can of Skoal. Then another lady with a full cart came up and hurriedly got into that line. Not that I cared. 

The beeper cart lady paid, and was having her groceries put into her beeper cart. They called a stockboy up front to help her load them outside. Ticket Buyer moved up. He only had a couple things, no cart. He paid in cash. The checker had trouble counting his change out of the tray, then handed it to him. 

I had my groceries already on the conveyor. I waited for Checker to scan my two sodas on the side of the cart. She did, and rang up my stuff, and put it in bags. Ticket Buyer was still standing at the end of the conveyor, counting his money. I wished he would do that somewhere else, so I could move up to the card-reader. THEN he asked Checker something, and counted out more money and handed it to her. Huh. He must have forgotten something. Maybe he also got some tobacco product while I wasn't paying attention.

"There you go! You're done." Checker brought my bags up over the conveyor, and put them in my cart.

"Oh. No. I still have to move up to pay!"

"No you don't!

That's when it dawned on me. TICKET BUYER HAD PAID FOR MY GROCERIES! He turned and smiled.

"Oh, that's so nice! You didn't have to do that. Thank you so much!"

"You're welcome." He turned to walk out.

"Good luck on your tickets!"

"Thanks."

I really hope he won something. I barely won money back. But then, I was ahead $28 and change, from the price of my groceries he paid for. I'd give you the exact amount, but I didn't get the receipt, heh, heh!

There IS hope for humanity! I plan to contribute by paying for somebody's groceries. I'd like it to be for somebody elderly, or maybe a harried mom, or an old guy buying ice cream and chips and beer. We'll see who checks out before or after me in the future. 

I'll have to be careful not to insult anybody. Some people have too much pride. 

Not this old Val!

Remember Hick's Wrecked Trailer?

Since the borrower's relative wrecked Hick's trailer a while back, that trailer has been sitting at the top of the BARn field. Originally, Hick was going to let the borrower junk it out to help pay back the debt. He's an old guy, though, and he and Hick reached a payoff agreement. Yet the trailer still sits.

That's from back in December. The trees are now leafed out, and grass grows in the field. Hick mows around the trailer. I'd given up asking what he was going to do with it. It's not pull-able. A tow truck brought it out here (paid by Hick) after the accident. There's still scrap metal to be had.

Tuesday morning, Hick said matter-of-factly:

"My boss from the senior apartments is coming out to get my wrecked trailer today."

"How's that? And why? What's he going to do with it? He can't just pull it away."

"I'm coming home, and we're going to load it on his trailer. I'll use the tractor to lift it up and put it on his trailer. He needs one of the axles off of it."

"Is it still good? I thought the axles were wrecked, too."

"One of them might be okay."

Well. What could possibly go wrong? Hick on a tractor, lifting a wrecked trailer onto a working trailer. I guess the other trailer can handle it. They haul cars on trailers like this. I'm sure a trailer weighs less than a car.

The question I SHOULD have asked is: "Will your boss be paying you for this trailer?" Because, you know, WE bought Hick's new trailer, which cost a few hundred dollars more than we got for the wrecked one. I don't mind if he gives it away. But if there's money coming in, that should go into the household fund that bought the new trailer. Not into Hick's pocket, as HIS money!

Val Gets Petty With It

Hick went to the annual dinner at our credit union on Saturday evening. It wasn't actually AT the credit union itself. They had it catered elsewhere. I used to go, but I don't like crowds much. The old venue had us crammed in like sardines, sitting on folding chairs, with buffet tables set up to serve yourself. The thought of that lately is not something I would want to subject myself to. We used to have a good time with my sister and her husband the ex-mayor. The Pony even went a couple years.

Anyhoo... since the credit union stopped sending out quarterly statements in favor of online accounts, we do not get the newsletter promoting this dinner. Hick would go anyway, for the free meal, you know, and socializing. But even more importantly, attendees can get a 1 percent bump-up in interest on a CD if they bring the program from that evening into the office within four months. That can be a lot of money if you have a sizeable CD.

Anyhoo... Hick went to the dinner, even though we didn't know the menu, since it wasn't on the website. Which I had checked to see if they were open Good Friday, to deposit The Pony's house payment, and saw that it was too late to RSVP for the dinner. Hick said, "They'll let me eat. I'm going anyway. They're not going to turn me away!" Thankfully, when he took The Pony's checks on Monday, he said he'd like to go, and they put his name down for the dinner.

Saturday evening, I got a call from Hick.

"I'm leaving now. I have the program to use for the interest. I'm bringing you some pulled pork and brisket."

"Ooh! That'll be good!"

Hick came in the kitchen door and opened up the container to show me. YUM! I immediately thought of how this would make three meals for me, once I made some sides to go with it. And a meal for Hick on Sunday night. He already had plans to go to a special dinner at the senior center on Monday evening.

Doesn't that look good? Pulled pork and brisket. Smoked, no sauce. Here's another view of the same container:

"That's good. You can have some for your supper tomorrow night. Instead of bacon sandwiches from the leftover bacon.

"I'm taking it in my lunch."

"What? You're not taking that for HOS, are you?"

[HOS (Hick's Oldest Son) has been working in one of Hick's auxiliary storage units, selling Hick's stuff for a percentage of the sale. Hick picks him up on the way, and takes lunch for him as well. It's usually Hot Pockets and chips, but I've been making ham and cheese sandwiches for them with the Easter ham. I don't begrudge HOS a sandwich. It's as easy to make two sandwiches as one.

I DO, however begrudge HOS and Hick this bounty (that Hick said he was bringing home for ME) to eat for their working lunch. Hick is such a carnivore. I could imagine this bounty disappearing before my very eyes.]

"Yeah. I take him lunch."

"When you called, you said you were bringing it to ME."

"Val. There's way more than plenty for everyone."

I beg to differ. Hick has been caught with a towering bowl of vegetable beef soup, with an entire shredded arm roast, a few assorted vegetables, and no "juice." I do not trust him with a container of smoked meats!

Yes. I'm being petty. Don't say you're bringing me food, and then say you're taking it for two lunches! It would have been fine if he'd said, "I'm bringing home meat for lunch for me and HOS, and you can have some." Then I know its purpose, and am happy to get a taste. 

Anyhoo... Hick set the container on the cutting block. I said I'd get some out for my supper, and put it away. What I did was take half the meat for me, and left half in the container for Hick.

"Okay! I've got mine in a different container. I took half, and left you half."

That's fair enough, right? Hick brought it for me, and I only took half! How generous I am! 

Anyhoo... Sunday morning, I heard Hick in the kitchen, filling his bag with lunch to take to his SUS2.5. I figured he was just taking the container, and probably putting some bread into baggies, or taking the rest of a loaf. I had set out mini bags of chips for each of them. Hick had already taken a bag of cookies that I'd bought him for home snacks.

Imagine my surprise when I opened FRIG II later, and saw Hick's container of meat still there. I asked him when he got home.

"Why didn't you take that meat for you and HOS?"

"Oh, I just decided I'd take the Hot Pockets."

Yeah. So he could have all that meat himself for supper. Which he did. With four slices of bread. Meanwhile, I had eaten a slice of the brisket on Saturday night, and made super nachos with some pulled pork on Sunday night. And will cut up the brisket and use the remaining pulled pork on nachos for Monday night.

What's good for the gander is better for the goose.