P IS FOR PHARMACIST

P IS FOR PHARMACIST

I drive.

Always have, always will, till they rip the windshield from my cold, cataracted eyes.

And now I get paid for it.

I drive for Uber, that radical company that believes people should be able to move people from place to place in cars that aren't yellow and metered.  Get the app, click, pay, ride.  Simple.

Except every city they try to go into fights them.  Taxi companies have formidable lobbyists.

Thing is, in every city, Uber wins.  Eventually.

So I drive.

And I write.  Did that professionally for 30 years in Hollywood, till somebody fresh out of the Draw-The-Doggie-On-This-Matchbook Film School decided I was too old.   So I moved to another part of the country, found this, and started doing one of the other things I always wanted to do.

Hear about someone else's life on a daily basis.

And...

You know that old cliche, "Everybody has a story"?

Cliches are born in reality.

So I figured I'd take the only two skills I have on this earth and put them together.  Learn stuff in the car and tell you what I find out.  Is it TAXICAB CONFESSIONS?  No, because I'm not a taxi driver and I haven't had a beautiful rider go down on me yet.  It's more what the internet can be at its best:   a tool for learning things you didn't know you didn't know.

So, herewith...


Today's rider was a Pharmacist.  Picked him up outside a major drug store and took him to his hotel.  Turns out he was on loan from a big city 150 miles away.   That's right, you can be a substitute teacher (er, pharmacist) from that far away.  Came down for one day.

But it gets more interesting.  This was his last day before he moved across country to take a job in Buffalo.

Think about it.  You're schlepping your entire life 3000 miles away, and the day before you go, you have to take a quick little 300 mile roundtrip.

All things considered, he was in remarkably good spirits.

Things I learned:

Some drug treatments can cost more than you ever imagined.  A new drug for Hepatitis C?  $1000 a dose, twice a day, 12 weeks. $168K.  Does insurance cover it?  Roll the dice.

Pharmacists get more respect from doctors than they do from their colleagues.  Why?  Well, doctors need the real world feedback pharmacists can give them.  But many pharmacists started out wanting to be doctors, then couldn't hack med school.  Hence, they brought all that arrogance to their new profession.

This guy is going to work for the VA.  He says they're giving him a solid wage, AND THEY'RE PAYING OFF HIS COLLEGE LOANS!  Yes, he said, that was the decider, even for Buffalo.

He went into pharmacy because he wanted to do research.  A few months of 12 hour days with only rats for company convinced him that little Egbert's runny nose was a lot more interesting.


And, oh, that drug expense?  It gets worse.  Some treatment courses are a million dollars.  Covered?  See above.

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I'm going to file these items a couple three times a week, or as often as someone interesting climbs in the car .  Some will be long, some short.  Some will be some slap-yourself-in-the-forehead brilliant, some boy-he-had-to-fill-space-today crap.  But whatever, there's a whole buttloada learning to do out there.  I can't do all the heavy lifting myself.   Come along with me.  In the immortal words of Oat Willie...

"Onward through the fog..."