a time to rant..

I had to come home and get off the road before I did damage to someone or myself.  Here is how it started. My family convinced me to head back to Instacare because I have had a couple big coughing fits and my hacking doesn't seem to be going away.  But then neither are my hay fever symptoms.  So I dutifully went this morning.

I was greeted with the comment that the intake might take longer than usual since their computers were down. But everything did not really take much longer than usual. I told the doc I was wheezy several times a day and that my daughter had been diagnosed last week with whooping cough (pertussis). Yes, I had been in contact with her. (They all donned masks.)  So it was into X-ray for a chest scan (negative) along with apologies because the computers were down. Then back to the examining room to get a swab from my sinuses and to await the doc. She decided to proceed with an antibiotic without awaiting the cultured swab (2 days). Her reasoning: That way we take care of any other bug--if there is one--that is causing this and if it is pertussis we're after it. Result: 2 scripts--one for Zitheromax (sp?) and one for an inhaler. Gadzooks: Images of my father popped up in my head as he spent most of his adult life sucking on inhalers. Anyway, I was assured, the meds would be at Walgreen's before I could get there.

Well, I have been quickly to Walgreen's in the past and been told they needed 15 more minutes, so I decided to drive to Smithfield and our local branch of the credit union to fill in the time. I needed to transfer $ from them to the bank (also conveniently in Smithfield) to begin the annual property tax payment and to care for the monthly VISA bill. Sorry, they said, we cannot process a transaction in this amount since our computers are down. How soon will they be back up? Oh, we expect them to be up momentarily. Okay, back to Walgreen's where they tell me they haven't  heard from Instacare. So I decide to kill more time by driving farther into Logan to visit the Credit Union branch this is downtown. Inside, they inform me that the computers are still down and they don't know when they will be back up.

It was noon. So I decided I would put a bunch of time into the waiting process by getting a Jimmy Johns sub, eating it, reading my Kindle (Salman Rushdie's Joseph Anton) and approaching Walgreen's again thereafter. I did. Walgreen's said: "You aren't going to like this." I say, "What?" They say we can't connect to our insurance billing program because the computer is down. I say, something must be happening nationally that is really bad and I'm going home. He promised to call. Yeah, yeah.

So I got home without killing anyone, or even seriously pissing anyone off.  Preternaturally calm was I. I'm still hacking, I am unmedicated for it, and by God I am going to take a nap. Maybe magically the computers will be up later on.