My daughter and I walked into Wendy’s the other day.  We both ordered a chocolate frosty.  When they presented the first frosty to us, I commented that the frosty wasn’t filled to the top.  I asked that it be filled.  We’re paying for a frosty and I want the cup to be full.  The employee said I would have to talk to the manager and I said that was fine.  The manager explained that they are only allowed to fill the frosty to the line that recently showed up on the cups.  I asked when this rule went into effect.  He said it was a new rule, but would fill the cup to the top for us.

In the background, the employee who waited on us picked up the original frosty she gave us and tossed it into the trash!  My daughter and I were surprised and wondered why she didn’t just add more frosty to it.  There wasn’t anything wrong with the drink she gave us; I just wanted the cup filled to the top.  Everyone knows that Wendy’s charges an arm and a leg for all their fancy drinks.

Another day, my daughter and I walked into McDonald’s.  We wanted the new Coke glasses they are advertising.  I ordered one of the meals that includes the sandwich, a drink, and fries.  I didn’t realize the meals now came in various sizes.  The one meal contains just the sandwich and nothing else.  The middle meal comes with a medium drink, medium fries, and a sandwich.  The large meal comes with a large drink, large fries, and the sandwich.  I thought I only had to order the meal to be able to get the Coke glass.  When I didn’t get the glass, I asked for it.  I was then informed that I had to order the large meal to get the glass.  So I apologized and asked if I could exchange mine for the large meal so I could get the glass.  They said that wasn’t a problem and the cost was $0.60 more.

Instead of giving me the same sandwich, putting the fries in the large holder and adding a few more, and giving me the larger cup, they threw everything in the trash and started over!  It used to be they would give you the unwanted food and also give you your new order.  When did we become so wasteful?  No wonder the fast food companies have to shrink the container sizes or raise the prices of the food.  They waste so much when they just throw it away.  There wasn’t anything wrong with the sandwich I ordered.  I could have easily eaten the original sandwich rather than have them make a new one.  I would have been perfectly happy with the same fries just put into a larger container.  Nothing was put into the cup, so I don’t understand why it couldn’t have been used for another order.

I am sure my daughter and I could easily survive on just the food McDonald’s and/or Wendy’s throw away every day.  We wouldn’t have to buy any food, we could just eat whatever the fast food companies throw away!

I have found a temporary job, but I don’t know from day-to-day if it will be there tomorrow.  Today, I went into work and was asked what I was doing there.  I informed him I was here to work.   He said there wasn’t any money to pay me for work today.  He also said I should use today to get my license and van tags straightened out.  I asked him how I was going to do that.  He stated that he had paid me $1,050 for the past 2 weeks and to use that.  I told him there wasn’t anything left. He then proceeded to ask me what I had done with it all.  I explained again that rent in the motel is $450 (this week, at least), which leaves $50 for everything else.  I have an 18-year-old daughter living with me, who needs to eat.  I also need to eat.  Then there’s the gas needed to keep the van running.  As you can see, $50/week doesn’t go very far.  He didn’t have an answer for that!  Everything we eat is frozen and has to go into the microwave.  If it can’t be microwaved, then we can’t eat it as there is no way to cook it!  If it can’t be cooked in the container it comes in, we can’t cook it.

People tend to think everything is so easy because you can get all your food from the various pantries.  Have you tried getting food from the food pantries?  First of all, no one thinks about the fact that you probably don’t have a can opener; if you can’t cook it in the container it comes in, you probably don’t have bowls, pans, measuring cups or spoons, forks, knives, etc., to cook it in and all that stuff can be expensive when you can barely afford to pay the rent.  Where do you store all this stuff in a motel room?  It’s not like there’s a kitchen table and chairs in here.

I’m getting off subject.  I have found that jobs are hard to find.  Even though I have a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration with a major in Accounting, I haven’t been able to find anything.  I am in desperate need of getting my teeth worked on.  My dental insurance doesn’t go very far at all.  It basically covers two root canals and two caps and it’s gone.  On top of that, it still only covers 50 percent of the total.  Well, when you can barely cover the rent, how are you supposed to pay for teeth work?  It’s not that easy to find an accounting job when your teeth are noticeably bad and you don’t have any appropriate dress clothes.  All the dress clothes I had were either lost or ruined.

One of my neighbors said they’d be glad to store some of our stuff in their garage.  When we went over to pick up some of the stuff, he informed us he moved it all out into his back yard.  Since his house backs up to the woods, the animals had gotten into all the bags, as well as the water from all the rain we had.  Everything was basically ruined!  I asked him why he didn’t call and let me know he was moving everything outside.  He didn’t have an answer!

Finding a place to live hasn’t been easy either.  My monthly retirement income is $1,200/month.  I am reluctant to use the income from my temporary job because it is temporary.  I am afraid I will find a place, get it, then not be able to make the payments because I lost the temporary job.  So I look for places that are within my retirement income, which are impossible to find.  I would like at least a two-bedroom place so my daughter can have her own room, but she’s willing to share a room with me if she has to.  If we could just find a place, I would be able to put some money aside to get my teeth fixed and buy some dress work clothes.  I would be able to put us back on our feet.

My daughter does nothing but sit in the motel room when I am in work as I am afraid something might happen to her and I wouldn’t know about it.  We only have one cell phone and she keeps it so she can get hold of me.  She is sick and I don’t want her to not be able to reach me.  I have the phone I can use at work if needed.  I don’t use the work phone for anything but business calls.  Once in a while, I will ask if I can use it for personal business, but don’t like to.  This is his business and he has the phone for his use.  I noticed that he and his one employee use their cell phones for all family-related and nonbusiness calls, not the business phone.

Therefore, I can’t really look for a place to live or a job until I am home.  Since I am gone from 7:30 a.m. till 6:30 p.m., talking to people about renting a place or getting hired for a job is virtually impossible.  I am totally out of money.  Everything I had saved is gone now.  It either went to the lawyers to try to get my house back or toward our living expenses.  Originally, I thought this would be a good way to start over–a clean, fresh start.  Now, I’m not so sure.  No one wants to help.  I’ve been in contact with social services, homeless shelters, Churches, schools, and food pantries.  You hear about all this help that’s out there, but I sure can’t find it. The only help we’ve been able to get is a medical card for both of us.  It has helped us on prescriptions, but not much else.  My daughter was able to get dental work done, but I am not eligible.  You would think they would also cover the adult as the adult is usually the breadwinner.

Basically, I’m disappointed that we still aren’t in permanent housing.  I am also disappointed that jobs are so hard to find.  It makes me mad that I worked all my life to prepare for retirement and someone comes along and takes everything you saved and worked for.

We then left Target and headed to my daughter’s 3 p.m. doctor appointment in Crofton.  After the doctor’s appointment, we went back to Target to drop off the new prescriptions and pick up the one I left earlier.  When we get to the pharmacy, I was informed that my prescription was NOT ready.  Not ready!  Why not?  It had been at least 2-1/2 hours since we dropped it off.  The Pharmacy Technician informed me that the insurance company had rejected payment of my prescription because of the amount of Tylenol it contained.  While we were waiting for my daughter’s prescriptions to be ready, we went to get something cheap to eat.  I wanted ice cream as it had been a while since I had any from Dairy Queen.  I absolutely love soft-serve ice cream!  We sat at the mall while we ate our ice cream and waited for the prescriptions to be ready.

After the allotted time, we went back to Target Pharmacy to pick up the other prescriptions.  My daughter’s two prescriptions were ready, but somewhat expensive.  I questioned the cost as I expected it to have no out-of-pocket cost.  They had used the wrong insurance company, even though I had tried to give the Pharmacy Technician my daughter’s prescription card.  The Pharmacy Technician told me they already had the information.  It is also recorded in our records that one particular insurance company should be used first.  The pharmacist said she didn’t know what insurance company was used.  She informed me she doesn’t fill prescriptions.  She just checks them.  I wondered what the pharmacist was being paid to check or what she was even doing there if she didn’t have anything to do with the filling of prescriptions.  I thought filling prescriptions was the job of the pharmacist.  Obviously not!

If she was being paid to check prescriptions, why didn’t she catch the fact that the wrong insurance company was being billed?  Maybe that’s not what she checks either.  If the Pharmacy Technicians did all the work, why was the pharmacist getting paid more money when she didn’t do anything but stand around checking prescriptions?  How boring!  How unfair to the Pharmacy Technicians!  They should be the ones making more money than the pharmacists, not the other way around.  I wonder if all the pharmacists just “check prescriptions.”

Since the Pharmacy Technicians were busy, the pharmacist came over to wait on us.  I informed the pharmacist that the wrong insurance company was used.  If she only checked the prescriptions after the technicians filled them, why didn’t she catch this? Didn’t she read the record and see what insurance company was to be billed?  Isn’t she getting paid to make sure the technicians are doing EVERYTHING correctly?  Or is she getting paid to make sure they can count the number of pills that go into the bottle?  Hm.  If the pharmacy technicians can’t count, why do they work there?  Why were they hired?

After informing her that the wrong insurance had been billed, she went behind the counter to make the appropriate changes.  By this time, the pharmacy is packed.  Yet the pharmacist is wasting even more time billing the  insurance company that should have been billed in the first place.

When she brought the corrected prescriptions back to the counter, she mentioned the prescription that the insurance company denied because of the level of Tylenol.  She accidently informed me it wasn’t the insurance company that raised the questions.  It was her.  She called the insurance company about the level of Tylenol in the pills and how she thought I was taking too much.  She also informed me that Tylenol causes liver problems and I should be very concerned.  I told her I was well-aware of that and was periodically (every 6 months) tested for any damage.  Everything was tested through blood work to make sure I was OK.  If it wasn’t, adjustments were made.  She must think I’m stupid.  Anyway, she decided to take it upon herself to inform the insurance company how much better she could do their job than they could.  I wondered why she told me that she was the culprit behind the denial of the prescription payment.  She made the Pharmacy Technicians look like liars, since they told me something entirely different.  I would think they would have been taught to back each other up, not contradict each other.  Why didn’t the pharmacist tell the technicians the truth?  Why make them look like fools?

I told her that I had just received 48 shots in my back and was told by the doctor to take my pain medicine for the pain the shots would cause me.  I would no longer be able to do that.  Why?  Because she took it upon herself to call the insurance company and now they would not pay for it.  On top of that, it would be days before the prescription would be available to me.  I asked her what she thought would happen to me now that she just stopped my prescription after I had been taking it for several years.  She proceeded to tell me how I would get the shakes, sweat, freeze, get agitated, and irritable.  I wasn’t worried about that.  I was more concerned about going into cardiac arrest or having a heart attack from her abruptly stopping the medicine without the doctor’s approval.  Who would take care of my daughter?  My daughter has no one else but me.  She said that wouldn’t happen.  I disagreed with her.  I’ve known people to have heart attacks when they weren’t weaned off the medicines properly.

I asked her about the Patient Education Paper that Target Pharmacy includes with your prescription.  I informed her that it warns, “If using this medicine for an extended period of time, DO NOT SUDDENLY STOP taking this medicine without your doctor’s approval.” Why did it have that warning if I didn’t have anything to worry about?  Why was part of the warning in big, black letters if it didn’t mean anything and/or wasn’t important.  Why include the statement at all?  Was it there to cause heart attacks in some people who would panic over the statement warning?  Some people take these Patient Education papers to heart and worry about the side effects or won’t take the medicine because they are scared of the side effects and don’t want to go through them.

She had absolutely no answer for the statement on the Patient Education paper.  She couldn’t even tell me why the statement was there.  I informed her that I thought it was so people didn’t suddenly stop taking the medication and that there could be dire circumstances if they did stop suddenly.  She had absolutely no answer.  It was obvious from her look that she hadn’t thought through the consequences.

Target doesn’t want to be held responsible, yet she was taking the responsibility and/or risk into her own hands like the statement didn’t mean anything.  I asked her why she didn’t discuss her concerns with me first.  Or why didn’t she call the doctor’s office and talk to them about her concerns.  She didn’t have an answer for that either.  I honestly don’t think she put any thought into her actions.  I think she just decided to pick up the phone and make that call without any thought to the consequences until I pointed them out.  I don’t have a problem with her Tylenol concern.  I have a problem with her not getting all the facts before she took action.  I firmly believe she should have discussed this with me first.  She has no idea why I am taking this medicine or what my medical condition is.  She automatically jumped to conclusions about something she knows nothing about.

As it all turned out, the doctor’s office justified the amount of Tylenol I was taking and the insurance company approved the paying of the medicine.  All she ended up doing was inconveniencing everyone.  She cost the doctor’s office money when the staff could have been working on things that were more important.  She also wasted the insurance company’s time while they researched the medicine I was taking, how often they were paying for it, and the conversations back and forth with my doctor’s office.

As I mentioned above, the pharmacy was now packed.  There were long lines of people waiting to be helped.  We had already been there for well over an hour and a half and this was our second visit of the day.  The pharmacist brought over our prescriptions and another one was wrong.  By this time, I was getting angry.  It was now 6 p.m. and we had been there since 3:45 p.m.  trying to collect and pay for our prescriptions.  I asked the pharmacist if she was going to be done any time soon.  One of the customers told me to leave the pharmacist alone so she could do her job.  I turned around and told her to mind her own business.  She wasn’t there the whole time to observe the entire situation.  I informed the customer that I wouldn’t be so impatient if the pharmacist would do her job.  Another customer decided to put in her “two-cents’ worth” informing us that the pharmacist had been helping us the whole time. That was so NOT true.  My daughter turned around and informed the customer that we were homeless and didn’t want to make another trip back out here with the cost of gas.  The customer told my daughter that our being homeless wasn’t the pharmacist’s fault.  No one ever said it was.  My daughter is sick and being there as long as we had been was virtually wearing her out to the point she could barely stand.

With that, the pharmacist finally brought us the last prescription.  She rang everything up, we paid, and left.  What started out to be close to $150 in prescription costs was now only $30.  Too bad we couldn’t have cut down the amount of time we were there too.

In closing, the doctor’s office called the insurance company.  The insurance company thoroughly agreed with the doctor’s office on the amount of Tylenol in the medicine.  The insurance company paid for the prescription, as usual.

When the Bowie gym started their policy of no scarves, I didn’t think anything about it. What a surprise when I read in the Bowie Blade-News that one woman took offense. In the Commentary/Readers’ Views section of the Thursday, 22 October 2009, paper, a woman feels this is an insult directed at her because she is black. She went on about how hard it is for black women to maintain their hairstyles when they workout. She claims she wears a head scarf to her boot-camp class several times a week to keep her hairstyle. She was warned by the gym that she could no longer wear scarves or bandanas due to the new corporate-enforced dress code.

I could not believe this woman thought the gym’s corporate office went out of their way to make this new policy just to discriminate against her because she is a black woman. When I work out, my hair always gets messed up. I also get sweaty and need a shower afterward working out. This has nothing to do with the fact that I’m white as it has nothing to do with her because she is black. I could not find anyone who thought this new policy was against them.

She contacted the corporate office with her concern about the new policy and how it discriminates against black women who work hard to maintain their hairstyles by wearing scarves. The corporate office was unsympathetic and said their policy was “to promote a nonintimidating atmosphere.”

She continued going on about how gym members wouldn’t be scared that she was some gangbanger and would decide not to join the gym because she was there wearing her scarf. She went on about how disciminatory the dress code really was. By the time she was finished, she had cancelled her gym membership and planned to start a new weekend habit of working out while maintaining her “not-so-good” hair.

I could not believe this woman thought the gym’s corporate office went out of their way to make this new policy just to discriminate against her because she is a black woman. When I work out, my hair always gets messed up. I also get sweaty and need a shower afterward working out. This has nothing to do with the fact that I’m white as it has nothing to do with her because she is black. I could not find anyone who thought this new policy was against them.

We got home and started unloading the back of the van. We had picked up quite a few groceries and other things. In the process of running in and out of the house carrying numerous bags, my daughter noticed part of the tire cover was missing from the back door. The outside cover surrounding the tire was still there, but not the part that actually covers the tire.

I rushed through scanning the cold things in the bags as my daughter put them away. We knew we had to hurry so we could backtrack the route we took when we were running around. It was imperative that we find the rest of the cover before someone ran over it. If that happened, the cover would crack in a million pieces.

Mind you, in was already dark out and our left front headlight was not working correctly. It came on when it wanted and turned off when it wanted. I had already received an inspection ticket for the headlight being out and couldn’t afford to get another one, especially since I hadn’t gotten this last one taken care of yet. It had been several months since it had been issued too.

After all the frozen stuff was put away, we got back into the van to retrace our route working backwards. We were pretty sure that the cover was intact when we loaded the groceries in the back of the van at Safeway. So that’s where we headed first.

As I drove, I watched the road on my side as my daughter, Jennifer watched the road on hers. We even went so far as to stop at the space where we had previously parked. Jennifer got out to look under the cars in case it rolled when it fell off. It wasn’t there. We left Safeway’s parking lot, still retracing our steps.

As we turned back on the main road, still looking for the tire cover, Jennifer and I both saw it at the same time. It could easily have been mistaken for a manhole cover. Our van is maroon and with the road paved black, it would have been very easy to miss. I unlocked the van, put on the hazard lights, and put the van in park. Luckily, no one was behind us. Jennifer quickly jumped out, grabbed it, and put it in the back seat. She then jumped back into the van. Both of us were thrilled we had found it. It would have been quite expensive to replace.

By the way, we ended up with 23 inches of snow!