Is This Really Happening?

I swear, sometimes I live the most surreal life.  I end up in the most ridiculous, over the top situations, and as I'm waiting for the hidden camera to pop out, I'm thinking, "Why in the french is this happening to me?"  God or Buddha or McDreamy or whoever has a seriously twisted sense of humor, that's all I've got to say.

Last Thursday started out pretty crappy.  I had to go into the doctor's office fasting to have some blood drawn, which I figured would be no big deal because I have to force myself to eat in the morning anyway.  I had forgotten that fasting means NO COFFEE.  I cannot function with at least one cup of coffee to trigger my brain to start firing synapses or whatever in the french brains do.

My children, who usually shove breakfast down their throats like I've been starving them for a couple of years, were of course taking their time, oblivious to the fact that Mommy cannot have coffee until they freaking finish their damn cereal-in which case eating the Cheerios ONE AT A TIME is not the best strategy!

Thankfully, things got better from there.  The phlebotomist was able to draw needed blood without giving me a watermelon sized bruise like most do-yay her.  We met some awesome friends at the Everett Children's Museum, and a great time was had by all.

We stopped by Walgreens so I could buy some stuff I didn't need use some coupons that were about to expire, and The Curly Haired One found a sucker even I couldn't tell her no about.  I wasn't so thrilled when she fell asleep with it in her mouth on the way to our next destination, but it did make a great photo op when I stopped at the next red light.....

The bizarre part began when we arrived at Costco.

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 First off, I only spent $40.  Are you kidding me?  I thought that when the guy up front clicked his clicker when I walked in it immediately added $40 to my bill.  So I was scared, but very proud of myself.  Go, me.  I went over to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription-may be too much information, but it's important to the story-birth control (sidenote: I originally mistyped that to say bitch control, and in my case, that is very, very true.  Talk about Freudian slip.)

Anyhoo, it was a new birth control for me, and the stuff I've always used in the past has been a generic, and dirt cheap.  So imagine my surprise when the chick rings it up and the total for 3 months worth was $205.  Yes, you read that right.  (We buy our own health insurance and don't have prescription drug coverage-we just don't get sick that often, and prescriptions are usually so affordable at Costco that it's more cost effective for us to save the money on the coverage and pay out of pocket.)

My jaw dropped.  "No way!" I told the lady.  She's all, "Do you just want to buy one month's worth?" like that was going to make it better.  "Um, no.  It's not that I can't afford it-it's that there is no way I'm paying over $60 a month for this stuff!"  I asked if there was a generic available, and bitchface here tells me no without even looking.  I shoot her a skeptical look, and that finally prompts her to get off her ass and go ask the pharmacist.  Shocker-there is a generic.  Come back in ten minutes.  Right on.

At this point, it's 5 pm.  I could either walk around the store for ten minutes and risk a meltdown of monumental proportions, or I could be a bad mom and give them greasy goodness from the Costco deli for dinner.  Cheap, unhealthy, but delicious dinner it is.  I'm sitting there watching the girls chow down their ginormous hot dogs when The Little One dropped a chunk on the ground.  "I pick it up and I "frow" it away!" she exclaimed.  Right on, sister.  Well, as she's picking it up, some lady who clearly needs to worry about herself more starts screaming, "NO!  NO!  Don't eat it!!"  Mind you, I was right there watching her, with my hand out to take the offending floor touching hot dog.  Also, she had said hot dog nowhere near her face.  The Little One is of a skittish sort, somewhat timid, and she does not like loud noises.  Bathroom hand dryers are her devil, and someone, especially a stranger, yelling at her could cause her to have an accident, for real.

Predictably, she started crying.  Big alligator tears.  Also predictably, I went from chillin to off the charts pissed in about five seconds.  Nothing in the entire world makes me angrier than other people telling my kids what to do, especially when they're not doing anything wrong, and even more so if you make them cry in the process.  The lady, still practically screaming, starts laughing and was like, "Ha ha ha, you don't eat off the floor!  Stop crying, there's nothing to cry about!"  I shot her a look that would melt steel and retorted, "You scared the crap out of her.  Can you just leave us alone now, please?"  I then picked The Little One up and said loudly, "It's okay, Bugga.  Just ignore the crazy lady."  I think she got the point because she finished her food really quickly then left.

Needless to say, I was not in the best mood as we headed back over to the pharmacy.  Just give me the damn pills and let's roll.  The SAME lady that had just helped me FIFTEEN minutes ago re-asks me my name and has to look me up in the computer again.  Wow.  Are you suffering from short term memory loss, Dory style, or what?  She brings out my new generic prescription, and rings it up...still $120.  Maybe I'm just cheap, but McDreamy Lord knows I've been whoring around using birth control responsibly long enough to know it doesn't cost that damn much.  I ask her, calmly, if she is aware of another generic brand that uses the same hormones but isn't quite so expensive?  She snaps at me that I will have to ask the pharmacist.  Whatever, bitch.

The girls retreat to sit on the chairs provided by the pharmacy for customers while I scoot over to the consultation window to talk to a dickhead lovely man by the name of Fred. I pose the aforementioned question to Fred here, who apparently managed to graduate pharmacist school but doesn't quite have a grasp on conversational English.  That makes me feel really secure that he handles lots of little pills with similar names but drastically different indications.  Fabulous.  He responds by telling me that the prescription they are trying to rape me over give me is already the generic.  No shit, Fred.  "I understand that.  What I'm asking is if there is a different brand, but with the same hormones, that may be more affordable," I say, overenunciating each word to make sure he understands.  "No, no, you have to call doctor to get different pill!" he replies, obviously not catching the train I'm riding on.  "I get that," I retorted, "but when I call up the doctor, I would like to be able to tell her what the cheapest option is so she can prescribe it."  Then the truth comes out.  "We have 20 different kinds of birth control.  I not look all up for you."  Awesome, asshole.  Customer service at its finest.

The Little One chooses that minute to fall off the chair.  Not because she was horsing around or being loud or anything, she was just turning to face The Curly Haired One and fell off because, well, cause she's my kid and that's what we do.  I spun around to see if she was okay, and that's when Mr. McRude Asshat actually says out loud, "Well, you need these pills-you don't need anymore kids."  And this is where shitty turns surreal.  I was so shocked and offended and upset I couldn't say anything.  I literally threw the pills back at him and managed to stammer, "Thanks for nothing!"  I turned on my heel, grabbed the girls by their hands, and stormed out, tears streaming down my face.

After a phone call to my husband where I screamed and cried and he worked his magic and calmed me the french down, and another very heated phone call to the manager of the Woodinville Costco (boycott Fred!), who was extremely kind and assured me the situation would be dealt with, I felt much better.  But the thing is-this is far from the first time something like this has happened to me.  Are people really this awful and lacking in common courtesy and kindness?  Is this something that happens to you?  Or do I just have a sign on my back that says, "Kick me and make me cry while you're at it?"  I just don't get it, and sometimes I just have to ask myself...Is This Really Happening?