Socialism is a Disease
And we are being asked to suffer:
One night when my son was six months old, he had a raging fever that went beyond normal baby fever. My boy is, well, feverish, so it wasn't a completely unusual thing -- but this one was unusually high, and climbing. Unfortunately, we were out of Infant Tylenol, which had shown past success in bringing his fever down. So I went to the store to get some. Now, we lived in a suburb, about an hour from downtown Vancouver. It was about 9:30 p.m., so the only nearby store that was open where I could buy Infant Tylenol was the big Safeway, which had a good pharmacy. When I got to the cold medicines isle, I found that the Tylenol, including Infant Tylenol, was locked up behind a plexiglass door on the shelf. I was no stranger to locked OTC medicines -- I've lived in New York and Miami, and I know that people steal stuff. Especially drugs. So i asked the clerk if she could unlock it so I could buy some Infant Tylenol. She looked at me like I was from Mars. "Oh, no, Hon -- the pharmacist has gone home. She leaves at 9:00. She has to be here for us to sell it." Well, that's a stupid rule, I thought. And I said so. But, it's not a rule, she assured me. It's the law in BC. That's right -- the law. Never mind that even if the pharmacist had been in the store, she wouldn't have a clue what I was buying -- or even that I exist -- because when she's there, it's unlocked, and it's four isles away from where she works. You can buy it at a regular register. That is, as long as the pharmacist is in the building. Why? Because somebody might have a question. This is Infant Tylenol, for cryin' out loud! What is there to ask? We ended up calling an ambulance when my son's fever reached 103F (still can't do Celsius) and continued to climb. We had an emergency room visit, where, you got it -- Infant Tylenol -- brought the fever down, and he was ok in an hour. Well, thank goodness we took the economically efficient way out of that one. The Tylenol at the Safeway might have cost us $25 or $30 (remember all those taxes...). But the ambulence and the ER were FREE. Well, ok, the Canadians paid for it somehow.....Read it all.