Another night of scoring at the candy bowl.

The rain came down and the kids stayed home.

Except for a few teenagers that didn’t even bother getting in a costume before showing up at the door.

Lazy.

The wife hit Costco again for its usual assortment of barely-good-enough yummies.

I scooped out the good stuff for my emergency supply and left the rest for those that braved the elements.

All-in-all a poor turn out.

Too bad.

The wife is preparing for our yearly pilgrimage to Las Vegas, land of lights and riches.

Just us this time.
The entire high school reunion folks aren’t tagging along.

I don’t prepare.
I just wait for the time to leave.

There lies one of the biggest difference between my princess and myself.

She gets into this “**We’re traveling**” thing in a big way.

For me, it’s a way to get from A to B.
The party starts at B.

Every time we go on a trip she buys new baggage.

I don’t understand that since the old suitcases have been used just a few times and look just fine to me.

She treats the whole thing like a formal dinner where a new dress is needed.

She and I are having this tug of war over one bag I like.

It’s just the right size, it was expensive and it looks new.

I’m attached to it.

She wants to replace it with something she saw on sale that’s not quite the right size, expensive and looks new.

I guess two out of three doesn’t work in this case.

While we don’t travel a lot, you can still imagine how many suitcases we now have around the house.

I go with one bag.
The number hasn’t been invented yet that describes how many she wants to take.

I figure we got enough suitcases to take half of Kahala with me if I knew those people.

I don’t.
They’re too rich and probably have their own bags.

The little lady is also going to Japan with some friends in March and she’s already wound up about it.
I won’t get into that because there’s not enough room here to write a novel.

The dogs and I will stay home and enjoy bachelorhood with pizza and cheeseburgers every night.
I’m a lucky man.

Back to Vegas…
If I hit the MegaBucks then we’d need all those suitcases to bring home the loot.

In that case – the woman’s a genius.

Got your attention, I bet.

Drum roll please…
I now add Longs Drugs to my ever-growing list of local companies schlepping their way to mediocrity.

Maybe I should start having a formal event where “Crap” awards are handed out.

Black tie, food from Ige’s and a small orchestra for dancing afterwards.
Make a night of it.

Longs, meet Zippys and Big City Diner.
I hope all of you will be very happy together.

Here we go –
Got a real sick dog.

He’s got one leg on the so-called Rainbow Bridge but he’s hanging in.

He’s on Prednisone among a ton of other pills.

As the vet put it, any dog that dies that wasn’t on Prednisone was getting bad care.

It’s got some nasty side effects but can do wonders for the time the animal has left.

I ran out of Prednisone yesterday because the stuff tends to crumble.
Won’t be getting more until the next vet visit on Saturday.

When an animal – or person – is on Prednisone you cannot stop it abruptly.

Real bad things can happen.

So, I call the vet and ask if they’d call in a prescription to my friendly neighborhood Longs for one 5 mg Prednisone pill.

The dog gets a 1/4 pill every night and that one pill will get us to Saturday nicely, thank you.

They did it and the wife picks it up after work and brings it home.

I get ready to give the dog his life-extending medication and the damn pill is 50 mg.
Ten times too strong even if it had been cut.

Ten times.

It would have killed him.

The vet checked and it was Longs error.
Wonderful.

Now, for those who say, “Geesh, it’s only a dog.”

That’s not the point.

Secondly – one wonders if this is how they check stuff before they hand it out to some old, sick person that just takes their meds without looking at the bottle.

Most people just open, grab and swallow, maybe?

I wonder if Longs has killed anyone recently.

Harsh?
You bet.

I’m pissed and grumpy and those two do not mix well.