Assorted Nonsense

Ever wonder what happened to the original Starbuck? (I mean the original BG Starbuck… not the Moby Dick Starbuck…)

Now we know:

If you live in Ontario you’ve probably heard all the kerfluffle about what the Ontario government proposes doing to pharmacists in this province. My wife is a pharmacist, so we have a vested interest in the battle. There’s a very real possibility of her losing her job.

Despite my obvious bias, I am trying to understand both sides of the argument. Here’s the situation as I understand it:

Pharmacies sell brand name drugs and generic drugs. The generic drugs are cheaper than the brand name drugs, but they’re supposed to work just as well. (There is some debate over this; generic drugs are made from slightly different ingredients, but the medicinal properties are the same.) From what I understand generic drugs are about 50% of the cost of brand name drugs in Ontario. Elsewhere they’re about 25% of the cost of brand name drugs.

The Ontario government reimburses certain patients (the elderly, those on social assistance) the cost of the generic drugs they purchase. They believe that generic drugs should only cost 25% as opposed to 50% the cost of brand name drugs. That way they would be required to fork over a lot less money. So they’re trying to force the drug companies to reduce the price of generic drugs.

The government believes that generic drugs are so expensive in Ontario (yet still less expensive than brand name drugs) because the drug companies spend a lot of money getting pharmacies to stock their particular generic drugs. They give pharmacies money called “professional allowances.” The government believes that if drug companies were not allowed to give pharmacies this money (which they call rebates, or even kickbacks), the money saved (about $750 million) would allow the drug companies to reduce the cost of their generic drugs. And if the cost of these drugs is reduced, it will save the government money that could better be spent elsewhere (about $500 million).

Makes sense, right?

Unfortunately, many pharmacies are small operations that claim they’re only able to squeak by because of these professional allowances. Without them, they feel they’ll be forced to reduce hours and services. Many pharmacies may be forced to close their doors altogether, they simply won’t have sufficient profit margin to continue. The government disputes this, claiming that up to seventy percent of the rebates wind up lining the pockets of pharmacy owners. The money is supposed to go to direct patient care, such as:

* A pharmacist’s time in explaining to patients how and when to take their drugs.
* The cost of delivering drugs to seniors.
* Flu clinic days.
* High-blood-pressure clinics.

(Quoted from here)

According to government audits there has been some abuse of the system by pharmacy owners, including not spending the money on what they’re supposed to, not fully disclosing what the money’s been spent on, and in at least one case, engaging in a resale scheme triggering multiple professional allowance payments. A few bad apples among pharmacy owners may be jeopardizing the system for everyone.

There are those who argue that it’s okay if a few pharmacies close, claiming there are about two thousand too many pharmacies in this country compared to the per capita ratio in the United States (although it could just as easily be argued that there are too few pharmacies in the U.S.). Dalton McGuinty, the premier of Ontario, admits that his plan may result in pharmacies closing. He’s okay with the idea of throwing pharmacists, technicians and other related staff out of work, though he won’t say how many it’s okay to throw out of work. The Liberal premier has said it’s not his government’s job to ensure the survival of smaller pharmacies (which actually sounds like something former conservative premier Mike Harris might have said).

Like most things in life, the issue is not completely black and white. Probably drug companies shouldn’t have to pay pharmacies to stock their drugs. And drug prices shouldn’t be artificially inflated. But if pharmacies don’t stock generic drugs, they’ll stock brand name drugs, which are 50% more expensive, and would ultimately cost the Ontario government a lot more.

Without professional allowances, pharmacies probably won’t be able to provide services at their current levels. To compensate, Premier Dalton McGuinty is committed to placing $100 million of government money back into pharmacies. But there are strings attached. There are plans afoot to empower pharmacists to do more than dispense drugs. They’ll be permitted to give injections to patients, for one thing. To get McGuinty’s money they’ll be required to do this sort of thing.

Some pharmacists do not welcome this. Being a pharmacist is already a full time job. They have little interest in adding to ever increasing workloads. It’s hard for them to get excited about having to give injections to patients. They’re pharmacists, not nurses. (What next, sponge baths?)

Pharmacists fear the McGuinty government will be taking far more out of the current system than they’re putting back in. If hours are cut back, pharmacists laid off, and pharmacies closed, patient care has to suffer.

To me it all sounds like another rather dodgy drug business, the heroin trade in Afghanistan. Few would condone the sale of heroin. The whole business should just be shut down, right? But what about the plight of farmers in Afghanistan dependent upon the sale of heroin for their livelihood? Continue to sell heroin, people suffer. Raze the farmers fields, other people suffer. A solution no doubt exists, but it isn’t cut and dried. The system is flawed, but it can’t be fixed overnight without hurting people.

So it is with the situation in Ontario. The current system isn’t perfect. But the proposed fixes hastily carried out will hurt too many people. The two sides, who aren’t even talking to one another anymore, need to get back to the table. They need to take the time to hammer out a proper solution. This may take a bit longer, but a lot less people will get hurt.

For more information and an opportunity to take a stance on this issue, visit Stopcuts.ca.

“You worry too much,” I’ve been told.

It’s true.

I’m capable of worrying about all kinds of crazy things. Things that make no sense whatsoever, but I’ll worry about them nonetheless. Because I’m the kind of person who wants definitive answers. Unfortunately, there are usually no definitive answers to be had when worrying.

“Hmm, I wonder if I have a horrible disease?” I might ask. Or, “Hmm, I wonder if something horrible is about to happen?” or whatever other silly worry I happen to be obsessed with at the moment.

There’s usually no way to know for sure whether any of these bad things will happen. So I find myself in this endless loop of constant worry because there’s no way to answer the question I’ve asked myself. There is no answer.

Which is what worries are.

Questions without answers.

There are some questions without easy answers that are worth asking. What is the meaning of life? comes to mind.

Worries are questions that are not worth asking.

I heard a story about a concentration camp survivor. He said the night before they transported him to a concentration camp he worried and fretted. What’s going to happen? he wanted to know. It was a question without an immediate answer. The next day they transported him to a concentration camp. It was without a doubt a horrible experience. But he survived.

Afterward, he remembered worrying about it. Worrying about it, he said, didn’t help at all. He claims never to have worried about anything again.

And that’s what I’m going to try to do.

Talking to someone on the bus yesterday who told me he too was writing a novel. Admitted he’d been working on it several years.

“Sure hope it’s worth it in the end,” he said.

Now maybe he didn’t really mean it the way it sounded, but it SOUNDED that if his book didn’t sell and/or make him a pile of dough after all that hard work that all the effort he’d poured into the book would have been a colossal waste of time.

I didn’t have much time to say anything as he was just getting off the bus at that time, so all I got out was a sententious, “The writing itself is the reward,” which earned me a sceptical look before we parted ways.

I really mean that. I know full well my novel may never sell (if I even ever finish it) and that even if it doesn’t sell it may not earn me much in the way of money or accolades. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing it, and when I finish it that will be a major accomplishment for me. I will be proud of it for what it is, whatever that may turn out to be in the eyes of others. I will also thoroughly enjoy the process of trying to sell it, whatever it amounts to.

And I will immediately start writing another one.

“What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?” someone once asked.

The labour itself, saith I.

I have a couple of friends who are going through some stuff right now. I’m sure they already know this, but just in case they don’t I thought I would remind them that there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.

Always.

Which is why I wrote the following silly but heartfelt post (presented here ever so slightly tweaked from the original):

There’s always light at the end of the tunnel.

Always.

Unless there isn’t, of course. In which case you’re probably not in a tunnel, you’re in a cave.

Not a problem. If you’re in a cave and you can’t see light, well, that’s just because you’re facing the wrong direction. You need to turn around.

If you turn around and you still don’t see any light, don’t panic. It’s just night outside, or really, really overcast. Wait a little while until morning comes, or the weather clears up.

If morning never comes, relax. You never were in a cave, or a tunnel; somebody just buried you alive when you weren’t paying attention.

This sounds more serious than it is. If in fact you have been buried alive, simply dig your way out with your bare hands (if you encounter wood, you may need to punch your way out first).

If you dig and dig and dig and dig and dig and still can’t find your way to the light and your seasonal affective disorder is acting up and your Vitamin D deficiency has kicked in and you feel yourself beginning to go stark raving mad…

Relax.

Try the dip.

There was no tunnel, no cave. You’re not a character in a Quentin Tarantino movie. Those were all just annoying little metaphors — mere reflections of reality, if you will. Obliterated now by light. Shining in through my window. I feel it on my back, see it reflected on my computer screen, obscuring what I write.

Light.

Hmm.

Just outside my office.

I think I’ll go for a walk.

Some day I’ll have to write about some good stuff that has happened to me.

But for now, another (cue fanfare) Banner Sport Moment in the Life of Joe Mahoney.

I may have mentioned this one before. If so, forgive me. But my sister Sam reminded me of this one, talking to her on her birthday the other day, so I thought I would write about it.

I studied karate for awhile until life got too busy. I don’t think I sucked as badly at karate as I did at hockey. Sensei told me I moved well, and my reflexes have always been pretty good.

None of that helped me in this, the second installment of Banner Sports Moments in the Life of Joe Mahoney.

So one day my wife washed my Gi (the karate outfit sometimes referred to as “pajamas” by certain friends), which was a nice thing for her to do. I put the Gi on in the dojo and the class began its warm up en masse. At one point the warm up consisted of throwing punches into the air.

On the first punch, something flew out of the sleeve of my Gi. The class stopped. Sensei stooped and picked up a pair of female underwear from off the floor. Belonging to my wife.

That and the time I accidentally punched myself in the face are probably my two favourite karate moments.

Ah, the good ol’ days.

The Easter Bunny worked hard last night preparing quests for the girls.

And this morning the girls got up bright and early at 4am to carry out their quests. Their father got up bright and early at 4:02am to shoo them back to bed, where they lay wide-eyed, wide awake and staring into the night until 5:30am when they got up once more, and knocked on their parent’s bedroom door to ask permission to finally carry out the Easter Bunny’s quests.

Voila, this year’s Easter Bunny Quest. Some of the clues are pretty silly, but you have to keep in mind that all sorts of children all over the world expect this sort of thing from the Easter Bunny. That poor Bunny’s creative well must get pretty dry after a few million households:

E Clue #1
Hello my friend E, it’s another Easter Year
Full of Easter Chocolate, and full of Easter Cheer
The cheer you can find easily, it should be part of life
For the chocolate look inside the shoes of Joseph’s wife

E Clue #2
Thank you for your note, my dear, I’m glad you think I’m cute
Flattery will get you lots of things, including Easter loot
But you still have to work for it, nothing is for free
Your next clue may cost you one hot cup of Pekoe Tea

E Clue #3
You don’t have to go too far to find the next big Easter clue
I promise not make you look inside another smelly shoe
You might get kind of frosty though, if chocolate is your dream
Because you’ll have to check out something kind of like ice cream

E Clue #4
I know a rabbit tall and furry, who once was short and sleek
He has ears that stick up straight with mannerisms meek
This poor old rabbit’s fraught with worry, he likes to whine and grouch
He likes nothing better than to hide beneath the couch

E Clue #5
Easter Bunny’s secret power is to fly quite fast
And when beneath the moonlight, no shadow doth he cast
The Easter Bunny’s breath is sweet because he likes his grapes
And he’s been known to nibble on the plants behind the drapes

E Clue #6
Have you ever had a dream you felt you could not share?
Have you ever danced a jig with Ferdinand the Bear?
Have you ever kissed a cat? Or pet a purple dog?
Have you ever found a clue beneath a smiling frog?

E Clue #7
Some houses can be dangerous because of all the cats
Cat’s do not like rabbits and we sometimes have our spats
Like the time two cats chased me out the door and then they locked it
A story that has nothing to do with the clue inside your pocket

E Clue #8
Are you getting tired of all this running around the house?
I hope you liked this game and that you don’t think I’m a louse
Take care my friend, and if by chance you go for a drive this Sunday
I hope you like what you discover inside your parent’s Hyundai

K Clue #1
Hello my friend K; thanks for your kind note
You should know I will not freeze because I have a coat
My coat is warm and fuzzy; it’s actually my fur
Now go and find a clue downstairs where kitty cats do purr

K Clue #2

The clues are getting harder because you my girl are smart
I cannot make them easy lest you get a big head start
If the next clue you can find beneath something that heats
One step closer you will be to yummy Easter treats

K Clue #3
I’ve heard that you’re a fan of music sung in many keys
Like Lady Gaga, Owl City and the Black Eyed Peas
I think a clue to do with music we can well afford
You might find just such a clue on a black keyboard

K Clue #4
Once I knew a rabbit who was friendly but not wise
This rabbit he ate nothing except hamburgers and fries
He grew so roly-poly I could roll him down the street
And there’s a clue inside a shoe that couldn’t fit upon his feet

K Clue #5
They say that nothing’s free in life; I suppose that this is true
Some things cost so much that it can make you kind of blue
But Easter treats are great because they’re almost free you see
If, that is, you figure out the clue beside the Wii

K Clue #6
Have you ever loved someone that made your heart go all a-flutter?
Have you ever sailed upon a sea of peanut butter?
Have you ever climbed upon an angry whomping willow?
Have you ever found a clue beneath a sofa pillow?

K Clue #7
Easter Bunny’s secret power is a fuzzy smile
Easter Bunny’s second cousin is a guy named Lyle
Easter Bunnies rarely give out any kind of jewels
But they’ve been known to hide their clues right next to father’s tools

K Clue #8
I hope you’ve liked this game my friend, and that you’ve found it fun
And that you’re not too sad my friend to find it almost done
Here’s a thought to cheer you up; the treats are not too far
You have but to look inside a certain silver car!

Of all the writing I’ve ever done, all the time I’ve taken with some of it, the editing, the revising, everything, this piece, which I dashed off in a matter of minutes and lightly revised once if at all, may be my favourite.

If only everything I wrote came so easily.

By Joe Mahoney

I want to tell you about my cat. Actually, I have three cats, but the one I want to tell you about is named Blossom. The story begins with my father-in-law, who decided to move out of his house in the country into an apartment in Moncton, New Brunswick. He needed a new home for his eight year old cat… Blossom. So my wife generously decided to add Blossom to our already (in my opinion) full roster of felines.

They decided to fly Blossom from Moncton to Toronto. They drugged her and packed her up and somehow it became my responsibility to pick her up at the airport, after work.

I’m at work on the day and it’s four o’clock in the afternoon and I’m starting to feel ill. Stomach flu kind of thing. I tough it out to the end of my shift, but I can’t go home. No, I have to go pick up this cat at the airport. But before I do that, I’ve also agreed to pick up a Disney doll as a birthday gift for a friend of my girls. I’m feeling increasingly sick, but I hightail it off to the Eaton Centre or whatever they’re calling it these days to pick up the doll. Then it’s back on the subway to where I’ve parked the car, and off to the airport.

Traffic getting out of Toronto sucks bigtime. It’s bad enough going east to Whitby where I live, but west on the QEW to the 427 up to the airport is worse. Fortunately, there’s a plastic bag in the glove compartment that I can barf into if I begin to feel even worse. It’s stop and go until about half the way up the 427. I make it to the airport without woofing my cookies. Thinking all the while, I don’t even really like cats (more of a dog person, really).

I find the proper gate at the airport with the help of a friendly seventy year old fellow whose job it is to give directions. At the gate I ask an attendant if my cat is likely to be unloaded there. She says yes. I wait. Everybody gets off the plane, including several dogs. But no cat.

I approach the attendant and inquire about the cat. She says, you mean the cat was travelling alone? I say yes, it’s a very sophisticated cat. She says, well in that case you must pick the cat up at the special cat delivery terminal located approximately three kilometres west of the airport proper. I ask her how to get there. She has no idea.

I visit my seventy year old friend. He has never heard of the special cat delivery terminal. I revisit the attendant. She unearths a phone number for the special cat delivery terminal. I revisit my seventy year old friend, who lets me use his phone. I phone the special cat delivery terminal. I get an answering machine. I leave a message asking them to phone my seventy year old friend.

I wait. I refrain from barfing. I imagine being home in bed. I really want nothing more than to be home in bed. I refrain from barfing some more.

The phone rings. It is the guy from the special cat delivery terminal. He gives me directions as my seventy year old friend spreads an enormous map across his desk and marks on it with a red felt pen. I repeat the directions aloud. “Turn right at the second Sunoco,” I say. “No no no!” the guy says. “At the second Su NO co!” I’ve pronounced it wrong. Apparently you can’t get there if you pronounce it wrong.

The directions make little sense. I decide to take a cab. I approach a cabbie and he’s all set to take me until I mention the cat. “No cats!” he cries.

Armed with my seventy year old friend’s map, I hop in my van and pick my way across north Toronto in search of the special cat terminal. Lo and behold there’s the second Su NO co. I turn right and wend my way down an enormously long, desolate road, past large, eerie buildings and arrive after much head scratching at what can only be the special cat terminal, where, one can only suppose, they land the planes and disembark all the cats before taking off again to fly the human passengers three kilometres further on to the special people terminal.

Inside the special cat terminal is a long, L shaped desk at which several unsmiling people are busy clicking away at special computer terminals. I’m feeling even sicker if such a thing is possible and not a little annoyed. “I’m here to get my cat,” I announce to one unsmiling face. He gets me to fill out a form and tells me to go around the corner and wait and somebody will get my cat.

I fill out the form and go around the corner and wait for somebody to get my cat. I wait. I wait and I wait and I wait. I am waiting in a huge hanger type space, filled with mysterious boxes and zero human activity. Finally I hear a shuffling. I spy an elderly security guard approaching. “Excuse me,” I say. “I’m looking to get my cat. Can you help me get my cat?”

“Your cat?” he says. “I can’t get you your cat.”

“Look, I just want my cat,” I tell him. “I’m as sick as a dog and I’ve been trying to get my cat for about three hours now and I just want to get it and go home.”

“Come with me,” he says. “I can show you your cat.” And he leads me across this vast space to a special door, which he unlocks, and ushers me inside. And there’s Blossom, whom I recognize from visits with my father-in-law. Filled with relief, I pick up Blossom’s case and prepare to take her home with me.

The elderly security guard, seconds before a paragon of peacefulness, freaks out. “What do you think you are you doing?”

“I’m taking my cat home with me.”

“You can’t take that cat home with you!”

I can’t believe my ears. She’s right there… I’m holding onto her case, perhaps I could make a dash for it… I sigh, a sigh perilously close to a barf. “Why can’t I take my cat home with me?”

He gives me this song and dance about procedure and I’ve had enough. I storm back to the L shaped desk and all the dour faces and I shout, “Look! I just want my cat! Will somebody please give me my cat?” And I storm back to the place I had been told to wait.

I do not recall actually receiving the cat or exiting the building. I can only hope the process was carried out peacefully and with a minumum of vomit. I do recall travelling home on the 401 with Blossom on the passenger seat beside me. I spoke to her soothingly. As tired and as sick as I felt, I suspected she felt even worse. I tried to be friendly, to welcome her to her new home, to make her feel better. I don’t know that I succeeded.

But I did get her to her new home. Where she lives with two new cat enemies, er, friends.

All three of whom I’m allergic to.

I remember an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati in which Les Nessman experiences excruciating embarrassment as a kid when he’s playing baseball and drops the ball on a pivotal play.

I was reminded of my own Les Nessman moment today talking to a friend at work.   We were talking about how my friend still plays hockey, and how even at this late-ish stage in life maybe I should consider joining a league.  I told my friend I didn’t really like hockey, that I had played it as a kid, and the experience left me scarred for life.

My friend asked me why and I explained how much I had sucked at hockey as a kid, and related my own personal Les Nessman moment, which makes me shudder to this day.

My well-intentioned parents enrolled me in hockey school one summer.  I probably learned a few things, but one thing I didn’t learn was confidence.  On the final night of the hockey school the coaches divided the school into two teams.  The entire arena was filled with hockey parents and onlookers.

I found myself in a forward line on a breakaway drive to the goal.  The left winger had the puck.  He passed to the guy playing centre.  In a misguided fit of generosity, the centre passed the puck to me.  I was horrified.  I thought, I’m going to take that puck, fumble it, and screw up the play.  I tried to make it look like it was a bad pass, that I couldn’t reach the puck.  So I let the puck go by.  There was a collective gasp from the stands that I can’t think of to this day, thirty-five years later, without a horrible squirmy feeling inside.

It would have been one thing if I had tried and missed the puck.  But I didn’t even try, I deliberately missed that pass.  It says an awful lot about my confidence levels as a kid.

I have other moments that make up for this one.  I’m thinking in particular of a trombone solo I used to perform that did wonders for my self-esteem.  But no good sports moments come to mind.

After hearing this really quite pathetic story my sports producer friend said, see, that’s exactly why you need to start playing hockey now.  To REDEEM yourself.  He might be right.  That’s what Les Nessman did in the WKRP episode.

But I think not.  Sure, if I could go back in time and redo that moment I would absolutely go after that puck even if I did ultimately screw up the play.  At least I would have TRIED.  But I can’t go back in time.  All I can do is learn from that moment, and make sure that I at least try with everything that’s thrown at me now.  Who knows?  Maybe if I hadn’t experienced that humiliation (because it was completely humiliating) I wouldn’t have that positive attitude now.

With everything except sports, that is.

The door broke on our drier the other day.  The drier is about three months past its warranty (naturally).

My wife is trying to encourage me to be handy, so I was encouraged to try to fix it.  (With all due respect to my lovely wife, it wouldn’t actually matter whether I fixed the door or not, I still wouldn’t be considered handy… sometimes I think if I were to rebuild our house from the ground up I still wouldn’t qualify as “handy” in the true, he-man sense of the word.  It’s not my fault or my wife’s, I simply don’t project enough test0sterone, or my hands are too clean, or something).

Anyway.

The door on our drier broke, and I tried to fix it.  I took the thing apart, and put it back together, and it still wouldn’t shut properly.

So we called Sears.

“It’ll cost ya seventy-nine dollars just for the repairman to show up,” the emotionless woman on the phone told me.  “Could be hundreds after that.”

“Send ‘im over,” I told her.

The guy showed up, a big friendly guy, a testosterone-laden, dirty-handed “handy” kind of guy.  He took the door apart, then showed me a tiny piece of broken plastic.  “Latch was broken,” he told me. “I replaced it for ya.  It’s all better now.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said.  “That stupid little piece of plastic is going to cost me seventy-nine dollars to replace?”

“Nope,” the guy said.  “It’s going to cost you seventy-nine dollars for me showing up, plus labour, plus parts.”

“How much is the part?”

“”Bout five bucks.”

“And the labour?”

“I gotta figure that out.  But I’ll tell you what.  If you get yourself a new, extended warranty package for both the drier and the washer, I’ll waive the labour.”

“Great!” I said.  “How much would that be?”

He made a phone call.  I got sweet-talked into a new extended warranty package for the drier and washer.  Not a bad deal when you consider it’s only sixty something bucks for each appliance per year for three years (I know it’s not obvious in print so let me just tell you outright that I’m being extremely sarcastic there).  In other words, to repair that stupid little plastic latch on the drier door cost me about three hundred and seventy dollars, if we never make another claim on the warranty.

The guy may have been right to recommend the extended warranty.  I may have been right to purchase it.  Because they don’t make appliances like they used to.  The washer and drier we had before these ones never had an issue in over ten years.  They were Maytags, unfortunately destroyed in the Great Flood of ’08.  The new ones are Kenmore, built with stupid little plastic latches in the doors.  The repairman said he would almost certainly have to return to fix them.  I believe him, because he’s one of those big, friendly, testosterone-laden, dirty-handed “handy” kind of guys.

But what bugs me is this:

By buying extended warranty packages on stuff, it seems to me that what we’re actually doing is “rewarding” companies for manufacturing crap.

“Hey, here’s a piece of crap!”

“Oh, great… here, let me give you some money for it.   Now let me give you EVEN MORE money for it because it’s crap!”

All I wanted from Sears was a washer and drier that I could count on to clean my clothes.   When they sold them to me, they didn’t mention anything about taking me to the cleaners too.