{"id":331,"date":"2010-02-07T10:33:32","date_gmt":"2010-02-07T16:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=331"},"modified":"2010-02-07T10:33:32","modified_gmt":"2010-02-07T16:33:32","slug":"pink-eye-and-pasta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2010\/02\/pink-eye-and-pasta\/","title":{"rendered":"Pink-eye and Pasta"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>04 February 2010<\/strong><br \/>\nThe semester has gotten off to a rocky start this time. On Tuesday, our baby-sitter cancelled, and today, Owen had pink-eye. Jennifer called me this morning (I was already at work) wondering what we should do. I decided to come home and be with Owen while Jennifer went off to her classes.<br \/>\n     Jennifer called Owen&#8217;s pediatrician and he was kind enough to simply call in a prescription to the pharmacy for Owen&#8217;s eyes. Around 1:00, Owen and I went to pick up the prescription. The technician who assisted us said she had no record of our insurance or prescription coverage. She asked me a bunch of questions (date of birth, social security number, etc.) and entered it all into her computer. She took our insurance cards and said: &#8220;I&#8217;ll have to call in to your provider and get some information, so can you just have a seat and wait for a while?&#8221;<br \/>\n     I told her that, instead, that we would go take care of another errand and then come back.<br \/>\n     When we returned, I pulled up to their drive-thru window and was assisted by a different person. He knew nothing of our story and had to keep walking away to speak with his co-worker. Eventually, he said they couldn&#8217;t find any information on our prescription coverage. He just kind of left the conversation hanging, so I asked: &#8220;Well, can I just pay for the prescription out of pocket?&#8221; I figured that if he said anything less than $50, then I would just pay for it and forget all the hassle that comes with insurance companies. He said: &#8220;Sure, but that will cost you $14.99.&#8221;<br \/>\n     &#8220;Oh, okay,&#8221; I said, &#8220;here&#8217;s my check card.&#8221; As he was ringing up the bill, he kept telling me I was welcome to return with the correct provider information and that he would then credit my account. I just nodded politely but, really, what a waste that would be. I&#8217;m sure the co-pay for the medicine would be $10, so I only spent an extra five bucks. And since I can submit it for reimbursement through pre-tax dollars&#8230;I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s worth the hassle of returning to Walgreen&#8217;s.<br \/>\n     Is going to Walgreen&#8217;s ever worth the hassle?<\/p>\n<p><strong>05 February 2010<\/strong><br \/>\n     Today was a good day. First, it was payday, which always makes for a bittersweet occasion, but I also got reimbursed for last semester&#8217;s college class. Wow, it&#8217;s hard to believe. I took a class at Hamline University, and my employer paid for it. Wow. Just wow. Jennifer also received a check in the mail for some of the work she&#8217;s done for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mamacampaign.org\/\">Mama Campaign<\/a> and she got a letter in the mail congratulating her for being on the Dean&#8217;s list at her college.<br \/>\n     We celebrated by going out to dinner at Macaroni Grill, where we both opted for the &#8220;create your own pasta&#8221; meal and Owen entertained us by using practically the entire table cloth as a canvas for his crayon drawings. Then we went to Target and bought a pop-corn machine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>06 February 2010<\/strong><br \/>\nThis morning I spent about an hour and a half sending out fifteen emails. I was trying to clean-up my in-box and take care of all sorts of stuff. I sent out emails regarding troubles with the photo quality in the MN Atheist newsletter, my membership with the Minnesota Home-Brewers Association, a short film that my friend Ryan and I began about two years ago that I&#8217;m finally trying to wrap up, the possibility of taking a class on documentary film-making, the possibility of getting a minor in history, some boring stuff relating to book-publishing, and even correspondence with my cousin commiserating on my grandfather&#8217;s rudeness towards his non-cult-member grandchildren.<br \/>\n     Later, we went to Cub Foods. Cub has got to be one of my least favorite stores that I actually go to. I mean, I pretty much hate shopping anyway, but I can usually avoid the stores I really hate: Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Sears&#8230;these are stores that I have been to three or four times in the past decade. But Cub (and Walgreen&#8217;s &#8211; see above), is one of those stores that keeps calling me back. But it&#8217;s dirty, crowded, smelly, the customer service is, well, nothing that even qualifies as &#8220;service,&#8221; and there&#8217;s nothing particularly note-worthy about the store itself. We only go there because it has everything. Well, not everything, but some of everything, I should say.<br \/>\n   When it comes to buying groceries, I much prefer Trader Joe&#8217;s, Mississippi Market, and Valley Natural Foods. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>04 February 2010 The semester has gotten off to a rocky start this time. On Tuesday, our baby-sitter cancelled, and today, Owen had pink-eye. Jennifer called me this morning (I was already at work) wondering what we should do. I decided to come home and be with Owen while Jennifer went off to her classes. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}