Evil Chris

Once upon a time, there was an evil guy named Evil Chris:

Evil Chris was so evil, he would kick puppies and expose mall Santas as frauds:

Evil Chris even tried to corrupt his own family:

But one day, as Evil Chris was in the midst of doing something evil, a portal to another dimension suddenly opened in front of him and a very familiar voice echoed through from the other side:

Before Evil Chris could react, out stepped...Regular Chris!

The two bitter enemies engaged in epic combat!

In fact, the intensity of the battle was so epic that I don't have the artistic skills nor a good enough version of Photoshop to capture the awesomeness that was this epically-awesome battle of awesomely epicness!

Instead, please enjoy a picture of a pissed-off kitten that is pondering the death of it's owner:

Fast forward to the end of the epic battle, and Evil Chris was defeated!  Regular Chris picked up the broken body of Evil Chris and threw him into the portal:

With the portal closed and Evil Chris on the other side, it was time to exhale (and thanks to Regular Cinderella for the pillow farting idea - hilarious!):

The End?



Mom - There has only been one person in my life that has always accepted me for the weirdo person that I am and shown me unconditional forgiveness in my many shortcomings.  Thanks for being my mom!

Happy Birthday - I love you!

-Chris

The Future of Pharmacy

As a white male in my 30's, I have a good idea which products are being marketed for my demographic and which ones are not.  As I was cleaning the kitchen the other day, I noticed that M picked up a new dish soap:

For those of you who can't read the smaller print on the bottle, this product boasts "overnight soaking power in 5 minutes".  When I first read this on the bottle, my initial reaction was this:

Let me reiterate a previous statement:  I have a good idea which products are being marketed for my demographic and which ones are not (this is why M does most of the shopping).

If you read a any of my recent posts, you remember our ongoing bouts with random sickness in our house lately.  First it was the flu, then everyone came down with colds, followed by some good-time fun ear infections.  Well, now we're on to the latest great adventure:  pink eye!

Adler came down with a case of pink eye which of course requires him to get some eye drops and us having to quarantine/neutralize everything he's come into contact with since birth.  This also meant a trip to my local pharmacy.

Now before I go any further with this post, let's acknowledge something (welcome to the disclaimer, that's right, the disclaimer...)  -  I work for a company that administers pharmacy benefits (if you'd like to know more about what I do, check out one of my earlier posts here).  The company I work for also has a mail order pharmacy that is considered a direct competitor of retail pharmacies such as CVS, Rite Aid, and that W place (which shall NOT be named).  These retail pharmacies have been pressing our state and national government officials to pass laws limiting the consumer's exposure to utilize a mail order pharmacy.  Their reason:  It's causing the retail pharmacies to go out of business.

Um okay...so does that mean that Best Buy can go to Washington, DC and say, "Amazon is taking our customers.  Do something government people!"  Or could Microsoft go to their state officials and say, "Google Chrome is out performing our Internet Explorer due to JavaScript and websites not utilizing HTML 5.  Pass a law or something that makes people use more HTML 5!'

Kind of whiny and asinine right?  Well that's just what these retail pharmacies are doing right now in Washington, DC.  Folks, I have to say, the downfall of retail pharmacy is not being caused by mail order prescription options.  The retail pharmacies are basically choking on themselves by using a simple business killer known as over-saturation. 

There are over 60,000 pharmacies in the United States.  Is that high?  Low?  About right?  You tell me - in comparison, let's take a look at some of the top ten food franchises in the country today.  If you combined all of the McDonalds, Starbucks, Pizza Huts, Burger Kings, Wendys, Taco Bells, Kentucky Fried Chickens and Dominos currently in our country, that equates to how many pharmacies are also in business in the US. 

For those of you that prefer pictures, I made one for you:

Think of it another way:  By doing a search online, I found over 20 pharmacies within a 5 mile radius of my house (19 of them were in my preferred network).  So when I am craving a burger, pizza, burrito, fried chicken or a chai latte, I have several options and a variety to choose from.  When I need to get antibiotics for one of my kids, I have over 20 pharmacies by my house that ALL DO THE SAME THING .  So while retail may never like mail order, the problem isn't a different model for dispensing medication.  The problem is the constantly growing number of pharmacy chains in America.  With our population, overall economy and the government cracking down on fraud, waste and abuse in our pharmacy system, there are only so many prescriptions that need to be filled in a day.  Yeah, let's blame mail order...good luck with that!

Anyway, on with the post.  So as my family uses mail order for our ongoing medications, the one time doses of things like antibiotics are typically picked up through a local retail pharmacy.  To help convince people to stay at their local retail pharmacy, some chains are pushing the importance of the "pharmacist experience".  Now I have been going to the same pharmacy for years.  Every 2-3 months, we need some sort of prescription for one of the kids.  No one from my "trusted retail pharmacy" knows my name nor could they tell me which medications my family have taken without looking it up in their system first. 

Now don't get me wrong, the job of a pharmacist is not easy.  It's basically their role to make sure your overconfident doctor isn't trying to kill you because they have no clue what they just prescribed for you (try not to think about it...you'd be surprised).  They also do a lot more than that, but I'm not here to educate you on the multiple roles of a pharmacist (use the internet for something educational for once and find out for yourself).

So with my already biased opinion of the "retail pharmacist experience", the following was my latest encounter at my local pharmacy (NOTE:  Due to legalities, the name of the store has been withheld...let's just call it "Giant Red Dot Store with a White Circle On It").  So as I am picking up Adler's eye drops, I am told that I cannot leave (and be given the medication) until I have a pharmacist consult. 

To which the pharmacist pulls out the box of eye drops and reads the instructions to me:

First of all, we're just trying to get rid of some pink eye...we're not trying to prevent the zombie apocalypse here.  It's eye drops that go into the eye (still with me?), you need to make sure you keep using the drops or the problem won't go away, and for God's sake, wash your fricken hands!  It's not that hard.  If anyone out there needs to be advised on how to do this, you really should look into some sort of assisted living...preferable one with a shuttle service.

For those of you who don't know me very well, I tend to not have a filter on things when I get irritated (or angry/sad/happy/ambivalent/drunk).  So when I was asked if I had any questions, I responded with the following:

If I were wearing my "smart ass" socks , I would have come up with a much better response, such as:

Or even:

But the more I worked on this sketch, the more I realized that these poor pharmacists are required to do this simply because some dumbass did something like the following:

So there you have it - the value of retail pharmacy.  I hope you leave this post feeling humored and a little more educated (and some of you will probably be irritated...sorry about that...not really).

Before we go, I leave you with another conundrum on the theme of reading labels:  Is it important or no? 

I leave the judgement up to you...

-Cheers!

Uncle Buckey's Parenting Aptitude Test #1

Welcome to a new series here at the Lemon entitled:

Uncle Buckey's Parenting Aptitude Test!

For those of you thinking about becoming a parent (or soon to be parents - Greg/Sarah, Nik/Denny), put those worthless books, blogs, magazines and DVDs away!  Crap like Happiest Baby on the Block was written for that one kid who grew up in a neighborhood without any other children.  Any type of parenting media is going to be help 15-20% of the time...if you're lucky.  Most of the time, you are wasting precious waking moments just reading/watching about how some "professional/specialist" took the time to share with you their secrets to raising kids (to which I question the validity of their profession and the "children" used in their studies).

As a father of four, I know one thing is true about kids - they evolve and adapt.  What works for one kid doesn't work for the other, and if you think you've cracked the code known as "raising kids", think again.  It's a total ruse by your child to give you that false sense of hope that you are actually the one in control of this relationship.  If you were dating or married to someone like this, you could consider this a dysfunctional relationship and your friends and family will be holding interventions to try to get you to realize that.  For those brave few, when it comes to kids, it is simply called "parenting".

Now I'm not trying to scare anyone here...being a dad is something I love.  But we all need to acknowledge that this gig is not for everyone.  A book or class or all the planing in the world (trust me, I'm a project manager) cannot prepare you for what's in store for anyone willing to take the plunge.

To help, I have created a series of posts (which you are now reading the first) to not help you learn, but to help you prepare.  If you can follow the simple steps that will be provided in this ongoing series, you will have a better sense for what to expect and if being a parent is for you.  In addition, I am not an expert on parenting (but I play one on the internet).  I will be sharing my own experience and nothing more.  If there are any readers out there that disagree with my personal findings, or if anyone would like to share their own experiences, I welcome anything you can provide.  If appropriate, I will happily share your story on future editions of Uncle Buckey's Parenting Aptitude.

Please note:  There will be NO financial reimbursement for any contributions, but you may be able to rest easier knowing your story has been told...trust me, sometimes that's all we as parents need.

So, let's start with the first test!

Your task is to watch the following music video in its entirety (WARNING:  This video's syrupy sweetness was known to cause diabetes in several test audience members):

Parents-to-be, welcome to The Gummy Bear Song  (try the German version)

No matter what you do to introduce your children to music - Mozart, Taylor Swift, Volbeat, Social Distortion, whatever - your child will also REQUIRE songs like this.

Did you make it through to the end?  Good!  Now go watch it 4 more times.

Now download it:  http://tinyurl.com/itunesgummybear
Then go burn an entire CD and/or fill your MP3 player/iPod/iPad/iPhone with nothing but this song.

Your next step is to play this song in your car nonstop and randomly play it throughout your normal day (try once every 20 minutes to start off light).

Now try to keep this up for the next two weeks.  Every time you have the urge to turn off the song, jab yourself in your arm with something sharp like a letter opener or a cactus to mimic the sound of a child screaming until you find the courage to return to the song.

Did you make it the two weeks?  Congratulations!  You are now one step closer to surviving parenthood.

I hope that this helped.  Before you go, I leave you with a final picture which perfectly portrays the joys of being a parent:

If you learn anything from this series, always be ready to expect the unexpected, and try to remember that nothing in this world is ever as shocking as raising children.

Luck to you all...

-Cheers!

Director of Implementation...it's what I do

Time for another post again?  I guess so.

As always, here's a quick update - It's been a good six days.  M left last week on vacation with some friends (no, that's not the good part), so I have been off work and home with the kids for the past week.  One of the hard parts about my job is the constant travel, so when I take time off of work, it's nice to spend that time with my kids and take advantage of the moments I have with them.  So while it's too early to introduce them to Sh*t Faced Mondays or teach them how to play Liar's Dice, it's been a full six days (M comes back in four more days) of The Lorax, eagle centers, toy factories, trips to Target, movie nights, and several episodes of Johnny Test / Gumball / Adventure Time. 

In addition, I was reminded by my daughter that we had yet to make a picture for her sixth birthday which was back in January.  So since we had the time, Ayris helped me design a new cartoon specifically for her.  Just like the one last year, everything from the colors on the cake to the quotes were of her own design:

Speaking of my job (and here we are again, full circle), I work in an industry that can be a little convoluted to most people.  When someone asks me what I do, I usually just tell them I deal with pharmacy benefits.  If someone is brave enough to venture even further down that rabbit hole, I go into my little speech - "Express Scripts administers pharmacy benefits for clients such as employers, union groups, managed care organizations/health plans, and local/state/federal government organizations.  It's my team's responsibility (as project managers) to implement our new client's benefits, clinical programs, eligibility, communications, and data history into our system for when they become effective blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah". 

Did you make it to the end of that?  I usually lose most people after I say "...pharmacy benefits..."  I added the "blahs" because I have yet to make it to the end of my little spiel...seriously, I don't know how it ends because I've never had the chance.  So instead of trying to explain what I do, I thought that I'd take advantage of a popular internet meme and try to show you all what it is that others think I do:





What My Clients Think I Do

What M Thinks I Do

What My Kids Think I Do

(Ayris helped me design this one)

What I Think I Do

What My Mom Thinks I Do

(my mom has no clue what I do)

What My Friends Think I Do

(they really have no clue what I do either)

What My Boss Thinks I Do

What My Direct Reports Think I Do

What My Peers Think I Do

What It Feels Like I Do

For those of you who are not familiar with the story of Sisyphus, he comes from Greek mythology and was tasked in the afterlife with rolling an immense boulder up a giant hill, only to watch it roll back down, and then start the process over again for all eternity.

What I Really Do

So there it is, in all it's glory - emails, meetings and chat windows (oh my).  Hopefully this has helped.

Before we go, I will leave you with two more pics to give you your much needed smile for the week (pay attention or you will miss it).

Looks like I won't be able to share Sh*t Faced Mondays with my kids after all.  Fortunately, there's still Battle Shots Wednesdays and Century Club Fridays.

-Cheers!