Flotsam and Jetsam...

Mrs. Overlord is sick, again, and time is a problem. I will finish the trilogy of Christian tomfoolery I've started later this week, but so that you don't suffer Overlord Withdrawal symptoms, here's some stuff to think about from the last week...


1. "Express Lanes" in the Supermarket: this is two lies for the price of one, sort of like "Hillary Clinton would have been the first female President".

This is the SLOWEST-moving line in the supermarket, any supermarket, and for much the same reasons.

The first is that despite the sign that says something like "12 items or less", people will routinely show up with more, stand in line, and then present the cashier with a fait accompli, in the belief they will be getting in and out of the supermarket faster and if they have bent a minor rule, no one will give a shit.

Well, you're wrong. I give a shit.

There's only two reasons to stand on the line with more than 12 items. The first is that you're a selfish bastard, and the second is that you might not be able to count. So, which is it? Are you a douchebag or are you stupid? Chose carefully.

If it were up to me, the other people on line who can count, read, and follow a simple rule out of courtesy for others, would be allowed to beat the selfish innumerate bloody like a raw steak.

The second reason is credit and debit cards.

For fuck's sake, carry cash, people! There's no reason why you should stand in line for 10 minutes to buy a bag of cat litter and when you get to the part where you have to pay, we should have to wait for you to dig your credit/debit card out, wait while you swipe it seventy two times when you should be inserting the end with the chip, or inserting the end with the chip fifty eight times when you should be swiping, waiting for the communications network to do it's thing, and then having to stand around while you sign a receipt.

The purpose, supposedly, of using these payment methods is speed and convenience, but it's hardly fast and you're inconveniencing everyone else, especially when you ask for cash, as well, because you were too fucking lazy to go to a bank in the first place.

The third reason: Food fucking stamps.

I have noticed a tendency for people who use EBT cards to do all their shopping at once, separate the stuff covered by food stamps from the non-covered stuff into two separate piles, have the food stamp shit rung up to pay with their card, and then the non-covered stuff treated as a different order.

Not only does this bother the fuck out of me -- you have more than 12 items there, Sister, and even worse, I'm paying for them -- you've defeated the purpose of the Express Line, which is to allow ME to get on with my life.

I understand you don't have a job to do, and a life worth living without government assistance, but some of us DO.

2. The Information Age. Really? because I would like to rename it as either "The Lack of Information Age" or the "Nothing Has Changed Age".

Case in point: Mrs. Overlord makes an emergency room visit two weeks ago. She gets a couple of EKG's, some blood tests, and is told to follow up with her cardiologist. She signs a release form to have the results of her tests sent to her cardiologist so that he has them when she finally visits.

Yesterday, we visit the cardiologist, and he has...nothing. Except for the discharge papers I gave him, which tell him nothing. There are no two-week old EKG strips for him to examine, there are no lab results from blood tests for him to review. Calling the hospital results in a two-hour delay while they "try to find" the records (all recorded electronically) and then transmit them to the doctor's office, only to discover they can't transmit a damned thing because the doctor's office is at a different hospital, and the two can't transfer electronic records between them.

Because they hate each other, presumably.

But most likely because they aren't using a single standard of technology. So, the only way Dr. Cardiologist is getting records from Dr. Emergency Room is if I go to the ER and ask for them, provided Mrs. Overlord -- who is fucking sick -- is there to sign another release form, too, and bring him paper copies.

Which I'm told involves a fee, despite the records already being paid for by insurance the last time we were here. And more paperwork.

This is AFTER, I should say, that the receptionist in Dr. Cardiologist's Office told me the co-pay for our visit, including a new EKG, is $1,853.

I was stunned.

Can't be...there must be some sort of mistake. We have gold-plated insurance. No, the receptionist assures me, it is a $1,853 co-pay. It's what the computer says.

So, I ask to look at the computer, and she complies.

"Do you wear glasses, Sweetheart?"

No.

"Did you finish high-school, Darlin'?"

She has a degree in Liberal Arts, she assures me.

"Do you know what the difference between a comma and a decimal point is?"

Yes, one is that dot thingy you use to separate dollars from cents, and she's not sure about the other.

"Because this says $18.53. Eighteen dollars and fifty three cents. NOT One thousand eight hundred and fifty three dollars".

She now wonders how many other people she's given incorrect co-payment numbers to.

But, hey, the pharmacy has already filled the prescription and sent an alert to my cell phone to let me know.

Good thing Mrs. Overlord isn't dying.