Gridlocked

I was stuck in traffic this morning on the way home from dropping my wife off at work. While sitting there, staring at the drivers in the other cars, I got to thinking about the premise of a traffic jam. Basically what jams traffic is some guy stopped at the front of an ever-growing qeue of cars. Who is this guy? What made him decide to set up camp in the middle of a highway? I can understand when there is construction, but what about when there is absolutely no reason to be stopped. What makes this person do it? I've decided now that I want to be a traffic jammer. My mission is now to be the cause of the gridlock on the highway. But how to do it? You see, most highways now have two or three lanes, and to be an effective traffic jammer I would need to block off all of them. You could just block one, and cause a traffic slowdown by making everyone try to change lanes to go around you, but I don't want to just retard the process, I want to lock it up completely. Now this is where my plan gets complicated. It involves a prom limo rental, a vehicle hi-jacking, and an illegal cross-lane parking job on the highway. Once stopped, I would get out of the vehicle and enjoy a picnic on the gravel shoulder, laughing maniacally at the chaos I've created.

Just as my plan begins to formulate in my mind, the guy in the car behind me starts honking. Now there is a novel idea. Maybe the people crammed bumper to bumper just needed a little reminder that they were stopped, and the annoying blare of this Ford Tempo's horn was just the tonic needed to get traffic flowing again. This man would be heralded a traffic hero, saving us all. We could have a parade, with animal shaped balloons. However, no one moves, and the man just becomes an annoyance that makes me want to get out of my car and beat the living crap out of him. The main problem now is the fact that others believe this man to be a genius, and have joined in, causing a symphony of horns to be blown into the morning air. Now there are obviously too many people involved for me to deliver an effective beating, so I sit in misery, turning up the radio to try and drown out some of the noise. It is right at this moment that the four cups of coffee I drank this morning decide to announce their presence in the form of a pressure on my bladder, and even worse, a cramp in my stomache signaling the need for more than just a quick urinal visit, or the ever so popular roadside watering. Wonderful. But just when my forced experiment in bladder and bowel pressure tolerances was about to come to a decidely unpleasant end, the traffic started moving again. Moving rather quickly too, I might add, seeing as there was a complete standstill on this highway mere seconds ago. Therein lies the mystery. What caused this long stoppage in traffic flow? I never did discover what it was that caused me to be locked in my highway jail cell for so long, nor who bailed me out and sent me back into society a free man. The road was clear the rest of the trip home. Am I free forever from its grip? Unlikely. When will it strike again? I don't know. But I know that the evil traffic jammer is out there. Waiting to prey on innocent drivers everywhere. And who knows, if my plan ever comes to fruition, the elusive jammer could be me.

And just to make sure that I leave no loose ends, I feel it necessary to inform you that I did arrive, in the nick of time I might add, at a bathroom. All ended well for me, but probably not so well for whoever cleans the stalls in that particular Burger King.

Until next time.......

Take Two Of These And Call Me In The Morning

As a worker with benefits I don’t usually think too much about prescriptions. However, being a jaded, ignorant jerk, I do usually think about the process of getting one filled. I look at the role of your everyday neighbourhood pharmacist. I look at the years of schooling, and the degrees these guys need, and then I wonder, what kind of qualifications does this job seriously need? I mean really? I have watched pharmacists very closely (while hangin out for the mandatory 20 minute waiting period they enforce before you get your meds) and realize that you could get a trained monkey to do the same job. How hard is their day? They show up, decrypt a series of scribbles, take a bunch of pills from a big bottle, put them into a small bottle, then send you on your way. That is their job. If you gave me an economy size jar of Tylenol and said "Put 20 of these in this little bottle", I’m pretty sure I’d be up for the challenge. So why is it that you need schooling for this? I’m certain that as long as you can read and count you could perform this task pretty admirably. Best of all, the stores generally give these workers a vantage point a good foot and a half above the average everyday Joe who needs a prescription filled. This way they get the optimum amount of space required to push pills around. I know that it would be an insurmountable task if they were on the same level as us. They have to be a good head taller than those around them to perform at their optimum "pill moving" level. Are they trying to feel more important? Are they upset because doctors can make people remove their shirts? Maybe to make them feel better we give them a spot to look down our shirts instead. Not as good, but still effective.

I think that doctors don’t like pharmacists too much either. I mean, they could easily print prescriptions in nice legible handwriting. Instead, probably just to piss off the almighty pharmacist, they scribble something unintelligible on a scrap of paper and say "Screw you! Try to decode this one, jackass!!! " Which I guess brings up another obvious question. How do we know we actually got what we were prescribed? We are really just taking this guys word for it. He could be throwing Tic-Tac’s into a bottle and telling us it’s medication. Who’s going to question him? He probably can’t read the prescription and says, "Screw it! I don’t care what this guy needs, he’s getting some breath mints, and that’s it! "

But just to leave you with a reversed viewpoint, here’s my final thought. What if the pharmacists are the real brains of the medical game? What if the doctors are just scribbling on a paper because they have no idea how to cure anything? Maybe the pharmacist is the one who really knows what’s going on. The doctor throws in the towel, and the pharmacist has to figure out what it is that’s really going to cure you. Kinda makes you wonder about those shady looking doctors.

Anyways, I'm outta here for now. But beware, I'm on the hunt for my next target. Piss me off, and it could be you. Until next time....