My Bad Insurance Should Get Me SOMETHING, RIGHT?

Recently, Wee ‘Burb has taken to emptying my purse. I thought stealing mom’s credit card and keys was a teenage thing, but apparently not.

She especially loves to take the credit cards out of their slots. I allow this because it keeps her quiet for 12 seconds. These days that’s a precious gift.

So, a friend of mine and I signed up for a candlelight yoga session as part of our 2011 goal of taking some different gym classes. I grab my cell phone case and toss in my debit card and license.

After a wonderful hour-long session of yoga, we both agree we could use some wine. We have a favorite wine. It’s cheap and light. Perfect to accompany some languid watching of Scared Straight and Celebrity Rehab.

I pay the nice lady for the wine and we head home.

Later that night I am putting my cards back in order when my blood goes cold. The card I have pulled out of my cell phone case? The one I used at a LIQUOR STORE to purchase WINE?

Is my health savings account card.

Do you think I can make a case to the good people at my insurance company that the wine was medicinal?

Trying to Adjust

I’ve mentioned here that I am a New England Patriots fan. This hasn’t been a large issue here, until this year when the Patriots actually played the Vikings’ division. I expected, and received, a few glares and groans when I sent Wee ‘Burb into daycare with her Patriots jersey.

Side note: she is not allowed to wear anything Patriots-related on Sundays. EVER. We discovered early on she was a total jinx. So she is only allowed to wear her Patriots gear the day after a decisive Patriots win.

A month ago I started seeing a chiropractor (this relates, I swear). It started when I was going to get massages more often and finally got lectured by the masseuse that I was a total mess and had to take care of myself. Given our current state of craptacular healthcare, I was unmoved.

Until I couldn’t move.

Seriously, like my entire lower half was in revolt. Every time I stood up, I’d groan like an 80-year-old man. I couldn’t sit on the floor to play with Wee ‘Burb without wanting to cry. And most importantly at the time, I couldn’t work out. And I really need to kick start my weight loss again after plateauing for about two months.

Anyway, I like my chiropractor a lot, although I initially had reservations because he’s clearly younger than me. There’s something disturbing about this phenomenon, really. It started when I found out the OB that delivered Wee ‘Burb was in my same year at college and when I recently got a new dentist and spent the entire exam singing the Doogie Howser theme song in my head, knowing full well I could sing it out loud and the dude wasn’t old enough to get that reference. What? That guy from How I Met Your Mother? Cool.

Ugh, anyway, so I had reservations, but he was offering a great deal that included X-rays and he was just down the street. He had a nice office, unlike others that I had gone to in strip malls (nothing like the smell of nail salon chemicals to relax you). So we’re simpatico, he’s a nice affordable guy, his receptionist played with Wee ‘Burb once when we had a daycare issue and she had to join me. I actually like going there.
So, I go in and take off my coat to reveal my Welker jersey and he literally stops in his tracks. I think he audibly gasped and then went “rub it in, why don’t you?”
I’m thinking he’s referring to something to do with the Vikings, and if any of you follow football, you know this could mean ANYTHING. The epic collapse of Favre’s career, his inability to keep his junk in his copious Levis, I don’t know. It’s been a rough year for the fans, man, I get it. But come on!

So he points to a sign over the door that says Packer Parking. The Patriots had just stomped the Packers not 24 hours ago. Now, normally, I’m a bit of a rager when it comes to my fandom. I’ll take on just about anyone in defense of my team. But I deflated…because, come on, this guy has the power to put me in some sort of death chokehold the likes of which you only see in Bond movies…you don’t piss a guy off like that!
I tell him I didn’t know, and he allows me in the door, but the whole time he’s like “oh if we had Aaron Rodgers, things would have been different.” And against every fiber of my being I’m like “totally, yup, one game without him…definitely ruins the season…yup” as he twists my neck.

We leave fairly amicably.

I show up the next visit and hold my hands up like I’m at the airport security “look, no guns or Patriots clothing.” The universal sign of surrender, right?

And he bites and asks how I am doing and I tell him, in all honestly, I was really sore after our last session. I ask him straight out “did you give me the Packers special?” and he kind of grins and goes “Stephanie, I can only say I didn’t INTEND anything, I can’t actually control what I do when you come in wearing Patriots gear.”

Now, that’s not something you want to hear from a man who’s holding your spine. But in a weird way, it made me trust him more. What does that say about me?

The Bitter Pill

You guys, something really weird happened to me. It’s kind of related to my recent blogging about what I am to understand is called Momnesia: basically me losing my marbles one day at a time.

So in June, you may recall that my husband hired me a housekeeper for the day to clean for my birthday party. And a few weeks later, I had what I attributed to a Momnesia moment. I thought I renewed some medication, went looking for it, and couldn’t find it.

Now it’s not a big deal, I dismissed it at the time. Because they’re basically just very low-grade anti-anxiety pills that I was prescribed for sleep when I was pregnant. I take them a few times a month on evenings I know I am going to be laying there staring at the ceiling listing all the things I’ve yet to do and all the time I should have spent doing said things. Am I the only one?

Anyway, these pills are awesome because they don’t put me to sleep, they literally just relax me enough where I can fall asleep on my own. But I am not so groggy that I can’t get up to soothe a very needy Wee ‘Burb in the middle of the night if need be.

Anyway, so I looked for them one night, and figured I just hadn’t refilled them. But since I couldn’t find the bottle, I just kind of blew it off and moved on. I have to confess, I was also afraid if I had refilled them and lost them, then calling to get another refill would put me on some list. Maybe it’s being the daughter of a woman who works in chemical dependency, I don’t know, but I fear ANYONE thinking I have some sort of issue with any mood-altering substance.

Case in point, after I had Wee ‘Burb, they put me on Vicodin. Which I hated, by the way. I don’t get how people can become addicted to falling asleep mid-sentence and waking up feeling hung over.

But anyway, so it said No Refills on the bottle. So I go to my two-week appointment and my doc is like “wow, Stephanie, you didn’t refill your Vicodin? You’re just taking Ibuprofen two weeks after having this baby?”

And I’m like deer in the headlights “but the bottle said no refills!”

Seriously, she stared at me like I had just spontaneously given birth to a twin they thought Wee ‘Burb had absorbed or something. And she informs me that it is only written that way so they can keep track of refills and make sure you’re not abusing it.

So I get yelled at for not taking meds, just in case you think the point of this post is that I was jonesin’ for some drugs and found them missing.

Since Wee ‘Burb has been mobile and I’m planning her first birthday and helping Scott with a new business while he constantly travels, I did need those pills, though. After three nights of not sleeping, I called Target and begged them to refill it. That was two weeks ago. I picked them up relatively without incident, other than that Target sucks my will to live with their construction and inability to actually refill a prescription within the timeframe given on the phone.

The other morning I get a call from Target saying my medication has been refilled. I inform them I picked it up two weeks ago. The pharmacist is puzzled, as you see someone called that morning requesting a refill. I asked if maybe it was an automatic refill request? She said no, they had a phone call request. Then she shrugs it off and goes “they must have just hit the wrong numbers.”

Ok, lots wrong with this scenario. First of all, have you used those automated systems? It’s kind of hard to punch in the wrong numbers because after you punch in said numbers, it says something like “please verify the first three letters of the last name are XYZ.” It also asks for a phone number to call when the prescription is ready. So if you did indeed make a mistake, those prompts would usually guide a person in error to start over. Right?

Second, why are they not more concerned that it’s two weeks and I’m refilling this prescription? I mean I get that it’s not some habit-forming pain-killer and all, but considering I need to turn over my fingerprints and first-born child to get Sudafed, you would think someone trying to refill a prescription two weeks after getting a whole bottle would maybe raise a few eyebrows.

I’m just confused why the woman at Target wasn’t more concerned. I’m trying not to blow this out of proportion, because if someone stole it and if they were trying to do something criminal with it, the joke’s on them. It’s something prescribed to preggos, so it’s not going to have hot street value, I’m just guessing.

But I also kind of feel violated that it’s possible someone was in my house stealing my medication. I’m not convinced it was the housekeeper because I don’t want to believe that of someone who does this job professionally. I know people who immediately blame “the help” when anything goes wrong in their house, and I do not want to be that person.

At the same time, I don’t know of any other strangers that have been in my house.

It’s just kind of an ooky feeling. Has this happened to anyone before? Do I need to take further action or just brush it off and figure the person either made an error or didn’t get what they wanted and moved on?