Reality Bites: A Tough Reentry

This is my surreal front yard on a good day, which, unfortunately, today is not. So I hunker down in Western Utah's Camp Fairytale whilst a gale wind shudders Goldie's aluminum skin and rattles her Imax "sliders," now mucked by a recipe of one part spits of rain, two parts atomized red dirt.

I tend to get a little edgy when pinned indoors by wind. Clouds I can deal with, rain, even, heat, to some extent, snow for a little while, but not wind. But there's more at work sharpening my "edge" than a tempest of horizontal dirt and filthy windows. Hang around, there are a couple of morals to this sad but true fable.

Two things are in play here, both of which are beyond my control... and you know how humans love to think they are in control. First, the infernal gale that rages, in denial of NOAA meteorologists who only yesterday promised that winds would soon abate. Growing up I learned that "soon" is a rather manipulative term used by people with authority; they dangle then postpone rewards. "But when, Mom?" Soon. What "soon" really means is that your request will be granted somewhere between "when pigs fly" and "in your next life," the latter of which requires belief in reincarnation, which is contradictory to teachings (brainwashings) at summer Bible Camps.

But its the second thing that erects the hair on my back, and I know of no other way to say it than to speak the truth as it unfolded for your's truly. It has to do with frustration (lack of control) with the monumental levels of incompetence and indifference one must face when trying to correct any kind of "glitch" that happens within the medical/pharmaceutical bureaucracy, particularly when it comes to Govie's bloated Medicaid and Medicare programs, those highly scammed boondoggles that have outgrown their capacity to be policed or audited. If you think Verizon is bad, try undoing a medical/pharmaceutical misunderstanding between two doctors, their office staffs, Wally World pharmacy-techs, and a co-pay insurance company.

In the ineffable, but infinitely shallow, words of Sheryl Crow, all I want to do is have some fun. I've got better things to do than spend 10 days re-explaining a problem on a phone that routinely drops calls like Trump drops wives. It's too much to expect, apparently, my attempt to reprise last year's epic Klondike experience. Aw, six weeks of living in the present, grinding up and flying down a glorious maze of single-track, totally focused and self-absorbed with utter disregard for world atrocities, Beltway absurdities, and personal medical maladies. All I need done in order to pull it off again is to get a prescription refilled. Enter the villain, Bureaucratic quicksand that gnaws at both my patience and the gears of efficiency like so much red sand that now abrades Goldie's sun-bleached broadside. Houston, we have a problem. Time and pills are running out. I resort to prayer.

Oh Father who art in Heaven, if you are real, here's Your chance to nip my growing agnosticism in the bud. Would You Pa-lease work a miracle, rescue my Eliquis prescription from the jaws of ineptitude, so that I might have at least two more weeks of Klondike...reveling in celebratory post-ride beer-buzzes and sore muscles head to toe. I need this time to myself, and lord knows Bobbie needs a break from me. What else am I to do to kill time while winter melts in Lovely Ouray? 

Reality bites, Man, sometimes the world just won't go away. It  spins further into chaos, war, and destruction. Our country teeters on the verge of a Trumpocracy, and the head Humpty Dumpty wants to build walls. Just two more weeks, Lord, please, then I'll get back to responsible citizenry, shoveling snow, doing dishes, and posting funny things on Facebook to relieve some of the stress on the Left. Amen.

Well, just as I expected, there is no God. April Fools, dude! 
I'm home, finishing this post slumped in my recliner-by-the-hearth. Lovely Ouray looks dirty and sad. Winter clings to her like some two-year old brat that just fell in a mud puddle clings to his mummy. It's cold, damp, and snowing, and I'm as pissed off as a school yard bully at being forced off my playground into detention.

It's brought to bear, believe it or not, by sheer medical incompetence and indifference. It's a hellish place, with pothole medigaps, outrageous deductibles, and donut holes bigger than the Lincolns driven by lawyers... the one's who lobbied said loopholes into law so pharmaceutical companies can continue to extort money from unlucky human beings who need their products in order to stay alive. It's seems so simple, fill a prescription. But I tried and tried and failed and failed to get it done from Klondike. No one cared that I was out of meds, there was no tone of empathy... just the sound of impatience and the feeling that I was a big bother. So I came home. Maybe if I put a "face" to the misery, get the right hand talking to the left. 

Three pills left, still, they show no mercy. I'm caught between glaze-eyed office-nazis who take out their low pay, overwork, and personal problems on me, the Wally World Pharmacy Techs, and two dueling Doctors who refuse to renew my prescription. I'm tied to the whipping post. What are they afraid of? That I'm some double dipping guy trying to blackmarket my drug? HELLO! It's Eliquis, not Oxycontin. I'm not hanging out at school yards and selling it to children; there's no "street value;" you can't get stoned on it. Will somebody please step up to the plate, break the stalemate, and communicate so I can live to fight you another day? 

to be discontinued...

Utah... how I miss thee...