Okay, this is a first world rant. Part of the first world blues I’m always singing.
My recurring prescription drugs are supplied through Express Scripts. And it works great. Except when it doesn’t. It didn’t this week.
I received a message from them to give them authorization to start an autofill on one of my prescriptions. I logged in and did as required. Another message came in: you have one item in your cart. Please complete your purchase.
WTAF?
I didn’t ‘complete the purchase’. I gave them feedback. Asked them to call.
Which they did. It was Kelly. She explained why she was calling in a chipper, professional voice edged with a little nervous quiver. I explained why I was annoyed. How I felt the system was telling me to do two different things. She then began explaining to me why my interpretation wasn’t correct. Nothing she was saying aligned with the messages or my experience. Reaching the point of irritation and recognition that nada was getting changed, I thanked Kelly and prepared to hang up.
“Well, do you want me to take care of getting the autofill restarted?” she asked.
Well, I thought I’d done that when I logged in and clicked on a button to start autofill. “Yes, please,” I answered. Kelly talked through the process of what had happened, what she was doing, and…
Her tone faltered. I sensed that she saw exactly what I meant in my complaint. Then, she finally said in a low voice, “Sometimes this system doesn’t make sense.”
Vindication!
I smiled.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Kelly asked.
My smiled stayed. “No, Kelly. You have a great day and a great week.”
“Why, thank you. You, too.”
With that, we said our goodbyes and I basked in my tiny, tiny victory.
Ferrari red, it’s a wide, low vehicle. My wife is my passenger. We’re backing out of a garage. The passenger mirror hits the garage door frame. My wife gasps. I grimace. We finish leaving the garage and see that there is a Ferrari Testarossa mirror-shaped scallop removed from the garage door’s frame. I get out and check the mirror while my wife grumbles. The mirror is there but is upside down. A twist and I fix it, good as new. Nothing wrong with it, which amuses me; the mirror is stronger than the materials bracing the garage door. How funny is that?
We drive for a while at a fast but sedate pace. Then…in a jumbled shift, I’ve driven the Ferrari onto some kind of large transport. It’s like a train without a track, with a living room, kitchen, etc., and the mad chaos of eighteen people, including children. Many of the others there are known to me as actors and musicians, Oscar winners and Hall of Fame rockers. I’m amazed to be with them but also think, “About time.” A young blond Helen Hunt is present, herding three children running around. She’s managing but tells her children with a wicked smile and a gleam at me, “Hang on, children, Mommy has to drive this as fast as she can. It’s going to be hairy. Do you want Mommy to drive fast?”
“Yes,” the children all agree in repeated shouts while I’m agape, accepting, this is what I signed up for but I didn’t know what I was signing up for.
“Okay,” Helen Hunt says, “here we go.” She has a wooden stirring spoon her hand and is standing in the center of a room, children around her, toys strewn across the carpeted room. “Zoom,” she shouts, and thrusts her wooden spoon up.
The vehicle rockets forward. She waves her spoon and it rocks left, right, left. The children are laughing. I’m paralyzed in amazement. But we’re moving.
A conference among others is called and I attend. “Where are we going?” David Niven asks. “We’ll know when we’ll get there,” replies Bruce Willis, and a third who I couldn’t name tags on, “But we have to move fast.”
I offer to drive my Ferrari. It’s faster than this vehicle, so I can pull it along and we’ll get there faster. This is given serious conversation. I’m eager to do this but all decide, hold off for a while, let’s see what progress we make.
I go into another room and sit in a chair. A noise warns me, something is going out. “That’ll bring the ants out,” I think, looking down at the floor. Sure enough, as expected, a phalanx of black and red ants rush across the tiled floor. They’re going to be a bother if they go in the direction they’ve begun so I use a foot to divert their path. More obediently than cats, they turn in the new direction, and some wave thanks to me, because they understand why I diverted them.
David Niven finds me. “There you are. Come on, into the Ferrari. We need more speed. See what you can do.”
In a dream shift, I’m in the Ferrari but I’m alone. Others are hooking up the vessel and then shout, “Go.” The Ferrari is now black, I notice, and wonder when the color changed. Yet, I know it’s my Ferrari. I smashed the gas pedal and take the car up through revs, up through gears, snaking the car around traffic along an undulating and busy Interstate. Looking back, I confirm the vehicle is still being towed. I’m impressed that there’s no wind and little impression of speed. I feel in command, in control. This is a breeze, I think, speeding toward some brightly lit collection of skyscrapers looming larger on the horizon.
Twozdaz, November 11, 2025. Happy Veteran’s Day to my fellow vets. Hope peace and grace find you today and every day. The digit set for today is 49, 58, and 51, with dense fog. Yesterday turned gorgeous for me. Out walking, I encountered the friendliest and most beautiful autumn trees. Such colors and personalities. I’m fortunate to live in a place of such beauty and have the means to enjoy it.
Recovery is going great. Rolled out of bed without any thoughts to the incision sites or how I should move. Just wasn’t any pain or discomfort to remind me to watch out. Having had pain meds in several days. Did begin a protocol of med level Ibuprofen yesterday.
I’m off on a day of errands today. Highlighting the events are picking up my wife’s new glasses. Her last visit with the optometrist revealed her left eye’s vision had severely changed for the worse. She’s eager for new glasses to rectify that. Bought that at Costco one week ago. They called last night to tell us they were ready. After that, Trader Joe for some essentials, and a restaurant to pick up some Vet Day freebies.
With so much information filling our lives on a daily, is it any wonder that The Neurons introduced “Jammin’ Me” into the morning mental music stream? This song is all about too much. Written by Bob Dylan and Tom Petty, who were looking at newspapers and magazines and selecting words and phrases, Petty remembered that Mike Campbell had given him some music, and that’s the genesis of the song. Trippy.
Waiting to see if the Trump Epstein Shutdown of 2025 will end its record run. Disappointing that Dems caved. They won’t earn any credit for caving, and the situation will remain unbearable for millions, and worsen. The cruelty is the point, remember? The destruction of our culture and the rewriting of our history is the point. To put one party permanently in charge is the point. To keep billionaires rolling in money and to enrich Trump is the point. To empower the presidency over the other branches of government is the point. To undermine and enslave the majority is the point. To put children back into factories and women pregnant and back in the kitchen is the point. To have an uneducated, subservient, mute, and compliant population is the point. To have white males rule again is the point. When they say, “Make America Great Again”, this is where they want to take us, back to a time when it was more like this, and regulations didn’t exist to keep people safe and healthy. That’s the point.
Epstein and Trump, party pals!
Time to coffee up. Hope grace and peace find the way to the rest of us, besides the vets. Dense fog just rolled up, blanketing the sun and triggering the house heater. Here we go. Cheers