Just Give Me My Puke Pills!: Part Deux

After returning home and washing out the barf bucket, I got out my trusty (read: useless) insurance card and dialed their phone number.

Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.

I should have taken the fact that the phone rang 7 times with no answer as a sign of what was to come.

Halfway through the 8th ring the line connected. "You've reached Screw You Blue Insurance. This is Lucifer." I should've taken the fact that Ole Luc didn't ask how he could help me as sign number 2.

"Yes, this is Mrs. Smith. I'm insured with y'all, and I'm having a problem getting a prescription filled." The desperation in my voice was palpable

This elicited an "Uh huh" from the Super Helpful Insurance Minion.

"So..." I hedged, wanting him to tell me what my next step should be.

"So?" He clearly didn't understand why I had a problem.

My mood swung and my inner witch came zooming out on her broomstick. "So!" I barked at him, all traces of pleading gone from my voice. I was a woman on A Mission. "So! I want to know what the problem is! The pharmacy said I need prior authorization from you, and I want you to give it to me!" I thought that the unspoken threat in my voice was perfectly clear. Lucifer, however, did not.

"Yeah," he drawled casually. I could hear the clicking of his solitare game in the background. "What's the medication?"

"Zofran." Good, we must be getting somewhere.

"Huh. Hold on." Before I could answer, I was listening to Muzak. Which I hate.

7 minutes and 51 seconds later, Lucifer was back. "Our policy is not to fill a prescription of more than 5 pills of Zofran without authorization from the prescribing doctor."

It was my turn to use his choice word. "Huh?"

"Ma'am, we don't fill prescriptions of that particular drug for more than 5 pills without authorization from the prescribing doctor" Click, click, click went the solitare game.

"Yes, I heard you, I don't understand what that means, though" I explained to the ghoul.

He let out a huge sigh. "Ma'am. Without your doctor's authorization, we will not pay for a prescription of more than 5 pills."

Clearly, he and I were great communicators. "What do I need to do then? Should I have my doctor call your office? Should I have her call the pharmacy?" I thought that by giving him more than one option I had a better chance at an agreeable outcome.

He sighed again and the clicking resumed. "Ma'am, you need your doctor to fax us a document stating that he or she has written you a prescription for Zofran and that he or she wants you to receive more than 5 pills." It was plain he thought my elevator wasn't running to the top floors. What my elevator wanted to do was floor him.

"Um, doesn't the fact that my doctor wrote the prescription for more than 5 pills show you that she wants me to have more than 5 pills?" I could not have sounded more irritated.

Neither could Lucifer. "Ma'am. Our policy is not to fill a prescription of more than 5 pills of Zofran without authorization from the prescribing doctor."

"Oh, good grief! I heard you the first THREE TIMES YOU SAID THAT!!" I was near the end of my rope and I wanted to tie what was left of it around this guy's neck. "Is there a particular form I need to have her send you or will her scribble on a piece of paper work?"

"Ummmmmm. Hold on." It took me about 5 minutes to realize that this time there was no Muzak. It took me another minute to realize that this was because he had hung up on me.

I burst into tears and threw the phone to the floor, scaring Critter, who also burst into tears. As I sat on the sofa rocking both of us I vowed to go out and buy an Insurance Demon voodoo doll and stab it with as many pins as I could get my swollen hands on.

It's Not Like I'm Trying to Buy Medicinal

Marijuana. Just Give Me the Dang Pills!

After spending the night curled in a ball on the bathroom floor while sniffing lemon slices, I dragged my barfy bum off the floor this morning and headed to my nearest CVS to refill my Zofran prescription. Zofran, for those lucky enough not to know what it is, is a highly potent anti-nausea pill.

I waddled up to the pharmacy and slid my prescription across the counter. Noticing my green gills, the chirpy pharmacist guy promised to have the meds ready in less than 10 minutes. I crawled over to the set of plastic chairs and dropped into one. A couple of minutes later a timid little voice called to me.

"Ma'am?" The pharmacist guy was looking at me with sympathy.

His sugary sweet demeanor immediately set off my alarm bells. "Yes?" I responded warily.

"Um, your insurance requires prior authorization for this prescription." He let this announcement hang in the air for a second. "And without insurance, it will cost $427.00"

"What?!" My shriek was no doubt heard all the way up in the film development corner.

The pharmacy guy began to look alarmed and took a step back. "I can't fill this prescription the way it's written without authorization from your insurance company. The only way I can give you the 30 pills is if you pay full price for them. Otherwise, your insurance will only pay for 5." The words came tumbling out of him so fast it was hard for me to decipher each one individually. The poor guy was obviously new to the profession and hadn't had much experience with dealing with people who were livid with their insurance company.

Well, who better than a barfy pregnant woman to break him in?

"That's horse hockey!!" I snapped at him. I lunged out of my chair and snatched my prescription back off the counter. "It's not like I'm trying to get Percocet or Pot or something! It's barf pills!! What the heck is their problem?" I demanded of him.

"I don't know" he stammered nervously. His eyes darted from side to side, obviously looking for someone to rescue him.

"You know, you really should have that answer!" I sneered at him and stomped away.

Once in the car I wrenched my cell phone out of my purse to call the insurance company. As I did, a wave of nausea hit me and I was wiped clean of my anger. All I wanted now was a bucket and my mommy.

Credit Where Credit is Due

A few minutes ago I got an email from my mom, who just discovered that we have a blog, and wants y'all to know that while she "Love(s) the bumpass site, there was NO mention that Madre helped with the cookies, krispies, made the ham and potatoes! I want credit!"

Notice she does not want credit for helping with the eggs. But, we all must take bad with the good, so I'm letting you know that she, in fact, did help with the eggs, and even painted the Van Gogh inspired "Starry Night" egg.

When Husband gets home, I'll mention it to him, too.

Our Bunny Should've Brought Pepto:

How Rotten Eggs Spoiled the "Hoppiest" Day of Spring

In a fit of holiday delusions I decided to make this Easter an Easter To Remember. Nevermind the fact that Critter is 7 months old and can't remember morning by afternoon. A couple of days prior to the holiday I went out and bought all the ingredients needed for pastel sugar cookies, sprinkle dipped rice krispy treats, and at least five pounds of Hershey eggs and various colored Peeps. On the way to the checkout, my path crossed with a display of egg decorating kits. I spied with my little eye an Egg Painting Kit with Glitter Glue. Cool! The picture on the box was of beautifully hand painted and then glitter sprinkled egg masterpieces. I tossed the kit in the cart and skipped my way to gestational diabetes.

The day before Easter I decided to cook my treats and paint my eggs. The sugar cookies came out just the way I like them: golden on the outside, still kinda squishy on the inside. I rolled out the rice krispy treats and painstakenly used egg and tulip shaped cookie cutters to make take them from regular squares to festive Easter goodies. Then I waddled to the fridge (those cookies and treats needed tasting for goodness, ya know) to pull out the eggs. It was then I realized that in my excitement over the painting kit, I had bypassed the dairy section, and therefore had forgotten to buy eggs. Whoops. I shoved various foodstuffs aside and in the darkest corner of the bottom shelf I found an egg carton containing 10 eggs, stamped with the expiration date April 2. "That's fine," I thought. I'm gonna paint 'em, not eat 'em. And they turned out just like you would expect painted eggs to turn out. That is, nothing like the picture on the box.

But, I had made them for my precious Critter, so I lovingly placed them into his basket. I arranged his other Easter presents around them, grabbed David's basket, and loaded them into the car to take to my mom's house, where we would be celebrating Easter the next day. At my mom's I hid both baskets in the back of the linen closet and then returned home.

The next afternoon, filled with ham, potatoes, and salad, we exchanged baskets. I took a billion pictures of Critter in the yard surrounded by the painted eggs, and then put eggs and basket on the table and promptly forgot about them.

Later that evening, David began complaining of stomach pains, and soon after began spending a lot of time in the bathroom. He made several potty visits through the course of the night, but as he had a big project at work, he had to leave for the office the next morning.

When he left, I went out to the car to bring in the baskets that we'd left there. As I put away Critter's new things, I realized that the basket seemed emptier than it had the previous day. I realized it was because there were only 7 eggs, not 10. I called him. "How are you feeling, honey?" I asked in my sweetest I'm-not-trying-to-kill-you-via-salmonella voice. "Bad," he groaned back at me. "Um, Sweets, I'm missing a couple of those painted eggs from Critter's basket..." I hinted.

"Oh, I ate a couple. That's ok, right? You weren't saving them, were you?"

"No, no, I wasn't saving them, seeing as how they were expired and then spent the night in a linen closet before Easter," I told him pointedly.

"Cool. After I ate them I realized I should've asked you first, so I'm glad you're not mad." He sounded so relived and grateful that I wasn't mad, I didn't have the heart to point out to him that had he asked, maybe he'd still have his insides.

And the Slack Mama Award Goes To...

...ME!!!

This afternoon I put Critter down for a nap in our bed. I know, I know, never leave a baby alone anywhere but his crib. DSS is on their way over here as I type. But, once Critter falls asleep, he doesn't move. At all. You have to check to make sure he's still breathing by holding a mirror to his nose, so it's never been a problem for him to nap there before.

Anyhoo, after putting him down I returned to the livingroom to try to organize the Fisher Price explosion. I realized, after a while, that I kept hearing a tinkling, clacking sound. Now, at first, I thought nothing of it. After living with a husband, a baby, and two dogs, I'm fairly used to tuning out background noise. However, after several more minutes, it occured to my fog-riddled brain that the sound was coming from the master bedroom. After another slow-gear-grinding minute or two, my brain clicked.

"The baby's alone in there!! The BABY must be making that sound!" my brain screamed to me.

I ran in there to discover this scene:



Yep, that's my Precious with a fistful of change that Darling Husband left on his nightstand.

Ironically, that's the video monitor receiver in the charging station. Maybe I should've used it today...

10 Things I Learned...

...While Not Able to Sleep in the Middle of the Night

1. Rio snores
2. Siesta snores
3. Critter snores
4. David snores and talks in his sleep. Apparently someone wired the control panel wrong...
5. The ice maker makes ice every 57 minutes
6. Infomercials have the worst actors ever
7. The TV guide channel must have some sort of deal with American Idol
8. If you stare into the fridge long enough, you will become obsessed with trying to remember the last time you cleaned it out
9. Germ-o-phobes should never try to remember the date of the last fridge cleaning
10. It's not worth the $2.99, so just throw the fuzzy tupperware bowl away

Your kid may be smarter than mine...

...but what can a 7 month old do with quantum physics anyway?

I went on a playdate with a new mom acquaintance the other day.

I was expecting it to be like this:



It felt a lot more like this:



Type A Mom: "Can your baby crawl? Mine can!!! My Charles Havensbottom VII crawled at 3 months. Your baby looks like he just started crawling a few days ago. You should have done more tummy time."

Type A Mom: "Darling Charles Havensbottom the Articulate can say Mama, bottle, and Harvard. It sounds like your baby has a speech impediment. He should really be making more consonant sounds."

Type A Mom: "See how well Charles Havensbottom the Connoisseur feeds himself his caviar? Your baby just smushed bananas into his ear. If you sang Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes to him in the womb, he'd know where his mouth is by now."

Me: "Wow! Where did Charlie learn to roll his eyes like that?"