February 23 – “Doppleganger”

Cailyn joined me for a trip to Kroger’s the other day.  We had to pick up another prescription for Mom.  Well, it was part of a prescription.  This was yet another case of the insurance company knowing more about what is best for Mom than her neurologist.  She is on a dose of two tablets a day, and the insurance geniuses kicked it back because “the usual dose is one a day.”  That meant the neurologist’s office had to write them an appeal letter explaining why the real dose was appropriate.  In the meantime, the patient, the one who actually needs the medicine, has to languish with no medication at all while they fight it out.  The neurologist finally assured us that “we usually win the appeals” so we could ask the pharmacy to give us a few days’ worth of pills to carry us over until the case is settled.  I called our pharmacy back (Randall’s) and told them what we needed.  The new guy there assured me that, even though he was leaving and the evening pharmacist was coming on duty, all we had to do was show up and pick up the pills.  Problem solved, right?  Not so much.

So Chris picked Cailyn up from school and headed over to Randall’s.  When they arrived the pharmacist on duty, one we have known for years, was obviously perturbed.  Seems that the day guy had failed to check their stock on hand before telling me to come on in.  Providing the extra few pills would not have been a problem, but they simply were out of stock and wouldn’t get any more in until Monday.  This particular medication is not one that can be missed, even for a day or two, so they were frantically calling around to locate some for us.  Target was out.  CVS was out.  Walgreens was out.  Finally Kroger’s said they had plenty.  Chris and Cailyn came back by the house to get her after-school snack before me and Cailyn started the next leg of the journey.

We had to wait a long time for them to get it filled.  That meant we had to put up with a very unprofessional tech who was acting as the cashier.  I think he was trying to appear funny, but it just wasn’t working.  He finally told us he was trying to get us a price break because the pills were so expensive.  Not the sort of thing you want to hear.  Randall’s usually fronts us the meds and just deducts them when the actual prescription comes in.  I made sure he was talking about the generic version, but they were still $65 for just ten pills.  I gulped and pulled out the trusty Discover card.

That crisis now averted, we went back to the car.  I pushed the unlock button and heard the click.  I was checking the fire department ap on my phone to see if Nathan was making the call that had just come over.  Cailyn pushed me aside so she could open the back door by herself.  She was so excited when she first discovered she had that ability.  Now there is no stopping her.  But when she opened the door, the car horn started honking, over and over and over.  I thought maybe I had accidentally hit the panic button on the remote.  I have never used it before, so I didn’t really know what to do.  I pushed that button, then both of the other ones, but the honking never stopped.  Cailyn was standing very close, gripping my leg in growing fear.  I was quite puzzled then, and looked up to see what could possibly be causing the car to make such a commotion.  That’s when I realized … we were at the wrong car.  It looked like ours.  Pretty much the same in all aspects including a car seat in the back, except it didn’t have the fire department sticker on the back window and, as Cailyn said, “That wasn’t my car seat back there.”  Oops.  Hope they are in a forgiving mood.  We shut the door quickly and scanned the lot.  Sure enough, we were a lane over from where we should have been.  There was our car right over there.  We hustled over and hastily entered.  We had no problems getting in.  Thankfully, by the time we got her buckled up, the honking had stopped.  I have no idea why my key remote opened their car, but that was a scary feeling.  I knew there was a reason why we used the Randall’s pharmacy.  Never ran into a doppleganger Twilight Zone episode over there.

Colossians 3:13-14 says, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

Father, thank you for your ultimate forgiveness that opened up a whole new world of relationship with you.  It’s great to know you are always in a forgiving mood.  Amen.