You all know what’s going on over here? You want to know how Monday starts for the Kelly household this week? Pink eye! It’s like being at chong’s house, with all the bloodshot eyes and eyedrops and shades drawn and everything. Only instead of bongs and spliffs and topless chicks, we’ve got puzzles and stuffed animals and cut up apples and chicks with their beavers out (I hired them to act as sort of waitress/nanny/slaves to improve everyone’s mood for the duration of the malady). It’s actually not as awesome as it sounds, though it’s real close.

They say that pink eye is caused by bacteria getting into the eye, and if films like “Knocked Up” have taught me anything, it’s that the bacteria in question comes from the human ass/turd/poo vapors (or ‘farts’ if you’re a doctor), but here it seems more like it came from our baby. She’s the patient zero in this house and I can only speak for myself, but I haven’t farted in the baby’s face in like, a month, so I’m guessing she must have picked it up on the streets somewhere. Sometimes, just for fun, we’ll be walking along and I’ll just kind of throw her at a passerby just to see the reaction. It’s pretty funny. I’m trying to teach my older kid to snatch their wallets while these pedestrians are frantically trying to safely catch my airborne baby, but so far all he does is cry and scream “no daddy! Quit hurting baby!” He’s a real pansy.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s where the pink eye came from. Stupid, dirty, shit-eyed pedestrians. I took the baby into the baby mechanic to get her looked over on Saturday morning, and aside from the place being a complete fucking zoo (full of snotty kids that probably all have pink eye now [take that, densely populated part of the world!]) they prescribed her a tiny little thimbleful of antibiotic eyedrops that cost (get this!) eighty bucks! Now, thanks to the highly contagious nature of pink eye (and our family’s natural tendency to wipe our butts and then hold the toilet paper up to our eyes for a second) we’re all looking at the little tiny stash of eyedrops like a bunch of cokeheads eyeing that last corner of the baggie. If I have to go get another one of those fuckers, I’m gonna lose my mind (although I went to a very friendly, all gay pharmacy that I can’t recommend highly enough. It’s in the building with the REI on Halsted just south of the new apple store and it offers free home delivery. And did I mention that it’s entirely staffed by extremely courteous gay dudes? Oh, I did? Good. Well, it is. Anyway…).

It’s gotten me to thinking about how entirely fucked up the notion of not having regulation on prescription drug prices is. I mean, if you really want to look at the effects of free market capitalism on the patient/drug manufacturer’s relationship, there’s absolutely nothing stopping these folks from completely raping sick people. Okay, the notion here is that you can charge whatever someone is willing to pay for your product, right? Well, if your product is the difference between me living and dying, or being sick for the rest of my life, or not getting this herpes flare-up to go down in time for the next gathering of the Juggalos, you’ve got me completely by the balls. You could clean out my bank account for a tube of Zovirax or some eye drops or some penicillin or whatever it is that cures whatever it is that I’m gonna get next.

I guess that’s why cancer ends up being either the death of your body or the death of your finances. It seems crazy. The entire medical profession is governed by moral law first and foremost, with the Hippocratic oath and all that, but the administrators, the pharm companies and the price fixers, in stark contrast, operate in an atmosphere completely bereft of any morality whatsoever. I’m with Sarah Palin: we should just go up to Canada for our drug needs.

Oh, and going to Mexico for your drug needs is also highly recommended. They’ve got ‘doctors’ right there in the pharmacy that will prescribe you vicodin or valium or oxycontin or whatever (not that you should be taking those things if you’re not in acute mental or physical pain, folks!), and the shit’s cheap. Apparently they’ve also got people who sell drugs right there on the beaches and stuff. Now THAT’S classy! If I had pink eye down there, I’d just cruise out to the beach and be like “Reuben, put down those brochures for snorkeling and hook a brother up with some of those antibiotic eyedrops, eh?” And I bet Reuben would even set me up with a discount if I was staying in the hotel that he stood in front of, or if I promised to do his whale watching tour or something. That would be cool.

As is, I’m stuck here in quarantine and all I want is a fucking cheeseburger. I’m thinking Windy City Gyros. That’s the best cheap burger around these parts for my money.
Whatever. I’m out.
xoxoxoxox