Count the pharmacists. Nine women, Seven men. This was the group that formed The Pharmacy Alliance at an April 2008 meeting at The San Luis Resort on the Seawall in Galveston.

The New York Times told us that economists first started noticing an important trend on the subject of women in the market place two or three years ago. The Times reported that women have been leaving the work force either permanently or for long stretches.

The Times did not focus on pharmacists, but all of you have observed women going part time for the number one reason…. family and young children. This is no secret, but is it the turd in the punchbowl at the wedding reception that everyone sees, but no one talks about?

The Times quoted Carolyn Mahoney, House of Representatives, “Women bring home about 33% of family income.” In two years, there has been a decline of 2.2% of women in the work force. This decline erases 12 years in gains for women.

Let’s you and I now focus on our corner of the question. The first JP at Large column in Drug Topics magazine on the subject ( early 1990s) got me the most hate mail ever. They called me names. PIG was one of them. I try to answer all mail. I couldn’t do it. They hated me.

The last time I wrote on the subject was just a few years ago and women agreed with me. My point was that the shortage of pharmacists is exacerbated by the increase in female practitioners. Take a look at your colleagues. There are fewer women pharmacists working full careers when you compare to the full careers of men. And the majority of new pharmacists are women.

There are places in this country where the pharmacist mother of young children can make $70,000.00 a year working 20 hours a week. (Think big national chain and the rural south and it is not TPX).

When that kind of deal is available, I’d do it too. In a 12 hour a day store, two days a week could get you $81,000.00 in that chain pharmacy in Magnolia Bend.

By the way, I’m just reporting here. Don’t blame me if your partner young mother pharmacist tells you that she is going to two days a week, like it or not.

Across the country, female pharmacists, in their prime years, are retreating from the profession. They do not want leadership positions. They just want to work part time for the big bucks. They just do not seem to exhibit a sustaining duty for the profession. Talk to me about this. Leave your comments. This is a very important issue.

I have suspected for a long time that the big drug store companies tend to favor men to put in the pharmacy manager positions. Men work full careers.

Pharmacy is special. It promises a really great ride for the woman who wants it to be her way.

The question is, “What do we do now?” Take a good look. We have a huge mountain of work ahead of us. Patients will be pounding on our doors. The boomers will be throwing money at us. We are already stretched to the limit.

“What are you doing?” You say to the scheduler. “I am already over-booked.”

“I know, but her baby has an earache. I could hear him crying in the background.”

How can we put up with over half of our work force only working a percentage of the average male’s career?

Don’t lay blame. You’d do it too if you could. I did it for 5 years. !977 to 1982. Talk to me about this.

The New York Times told us that economists first started noticing an important trend on the subject of women in the market place two or three years ago. The Times reported that women have been leaving the work force either permanently or for long stretches.

The Times did not focus on pharmacists, but all of you have observed women going part time for the number one reason…. family and young children. This is no secret, but is it the turd in the punchbowl at the wedding reception that everyone sees, but no one talks about?

The Times quoted Carolyn Mahoney, House of Representatives, “Women bring home about 33% of family income.” In two years, there has been a decline of 2.2% of women in the work force. This decline erases 12 years in gains for women.

Let’s you and I now focus on our corner of the question. The first JP at Large column in Drug Topics magazine on the subject ( early 1990s) got me the most hate mail ever. They called me names. PIG was one of them. I try to answer all mail. I couldn’t do it. They hated me.

The last time I wrote on the subject was just a few years ago and women agreed with me. My point was that the shortage of pharmacists is exacerbated by the increase in female practitioners. Take a look at your colleagues. There are fewer women pharmacists working full careers when you compare to the full careers of men. And the majority of new pharmacists are women.

There are places in this country where the pharmacist mother of young children can make $70,000.00 a year working 20 hours a week. (Think big national chain and the rural south and it is not TPX).

When that kind of deal is available, I’d do it too. In a 12 hour a day store, two days a week could get you $81,000.00 in that chain pharmacy in Magnolia Bend.

By the way, I’m just reporting here. Don’t blame me if your partner young mother pharmacist tells you that she is going to two days a week, like it or not.

Across the country, female pharmacists, in their prime years, are retreating from the profession. They do not want leadership positions. They just want to work part time for the big bucks. They just do not seem to exhibit a sustaining duty for the profession. Talk to me about this. Leave your comments.

This is a very important issue. I have suspected for a long time that the big drug store companies tend to favor men to put in the pharmacy manager positions. Men work full careers.

Pharmacy is special. It promises a really great ride for the woman who wants it to be her way.

The question is, “What do we do now?” Take a good look. We have a huge mountain of work ahead of us. Patients will be pounding on our doors. The boomers will be throwing money at us. We are already stretched to the limit.

“What are you doing?” You say to the scheduler. “I am already over-booked.”

“I know, but her baby has an earache. I could hear him crying in the background.”

How can we put up with over half of our work force only working a percentage of the average male’s career?

Don’t lay blame. You’d do it too if you could. I did it for 5 years. !977 to 1982. Talk to me about this.

The New York Times told us that economists first started noticing an important trend on the subject of women in the market place two or three years ago. The Times reported that women have been leaving the work force either permanently or for long stretches.

The Times did not focus on pharmacists, but all of you have observed women going part time for the number one reason…. family and young children. This is no secret, but is it the turd in the punchbowl at the wedding reception that everyone sees, but no one talks about?

The Times quoted Carolyn Mahoney, House of Representatives, “Women bring home about 33% of family income.” In two years, there has been a decline of 2.2% of women in the work force. This decline erases 12 years in gains for women.

Let’s you and I now focus on our corner of the question. The first JP at Large column in Drug Topics magazine on the subject ( early 1990s) got me the most hate mail ever. They called me names. PIG was one of them. I try to answer all mail. I couldn’t do it. They hated me.

The last time I wrote on the subject was just a few years ago and women agreed with me. My point was that the shortage of pharmacists is exacerbated by the increase in female practitioners. Take a look at your colleagues. There are fewer women pharmacists working full careers when you compare to the full careers of men. And the majority of new pharmacists are women.

There are places in this country where the pharmacist mother of young children can make $70,000.00 a year working 20 hours a week. (Think big national chain and the rural south and it is not TPX).

When that kind of deal is available, I’d do it too. In a 12 hour a day store, two days a week could get you $81,000.00 in that chain pharmacy in Magnolia Bend.

By the way, I’m just reporting here. Don’t blame me if your partner young mother pharmacist tells you that she is going to two days a week, like it or not.

Across the country, female pharmacists, in their prime years, are retreating from the profession. They do not want leadership positions. They just want to work part time for the big bucks. They just do not seem to exhibit a sustaining duty for the profession. Talk to me about this. Leave your comments.

This is a very important issue. I have suspected for a long time that the big drug store companies tend to favor men to put in the pharmacy manager positions. Men work full careers.

Pharmacy is special. It promises a really great ride for the woman who wants it to be her way.

The question is, “What do we do now?” Take a good look. We have a huge mountain of work ahead of us. Patients will be pounding on our doors. The boomers will be throwing money at us. We are already stretched to the limit.

“What are you doing?” You say to the scheduler. “I am already over-booked.”

“I know, but her baby has an earache. I could hear him crying in the background.”

How can we put up with over half of our work force only working a percentage of the average male’s career? As male pharmacists my age bail out, the majority of women grows.

Don’t lay blame. You’d do it too if you could. I did part time for 5 years. !977 to 1982. Talk to me about this.

I want to provide some balance.  There is video on the Pfizer website that tells you how altrusitic the company is.  How dedicated to the health of humankind.  Was Pfizer the company that killed off a bunch of kids in an African village testing a bad drug?  The video is impressive and believable… if you are a third grade teacher.  Pharmacists, I think, are too smart.

A few days ago, I received an e-mail from a “Detail Man” who was very young in the 1990s.

He worked for Pfizer.  The company had not turned into the “Profit-only” behemoth that it is today.  This was when I lived in the Pacific Northwest, Whidbey Island.  He was good at his job.  A friendly kid.  That was when Big Pharma still had pharmacists on their lists of calls.

So there is no argument about what Pfizer does.  In 2005, Henry McKinnell (The Chairman of Pfizer) wrote a book entitled: A Call to Action. This is what he wrote. “A number of factors go into the mix” (of pricing). “Those factors consider cost of business, competition, patent status, anticipated volume, and, MOST IMPORTANT, our estimation of the income generated by sales of the product.”

Ka-Ching.  Is there any Big Pharma company that has as its primary purpose the curing of illnesses, the treatment of diseases and the amelioration of conditions?

I received two Emails from my Whidbey Island friend.

The first was after my column on “Hurry Sickness” appeared in the October Drug Topics.

He said,  “Part of my current job is working with community pharmacies to address Hurry Sickness to some degree.  Pfizer and NASPA have been targeting the small independent pharmacies with a business model that will increase patient loyalty and improve the work load of  pharmacists”. 

A week or so later.

He said, I am here at the NCPA meeting in New Orleans and just finished with a conference on the Patient Centric Model for pharmacies.  Let me know if there is anything we can do for you in the future.

I am reasonably uncomfortable because I know that he isn’t just writing to say hello.  He sent me the Emails because he sees a chance that Jay Pee will promote Pfizer’s good deeds for pharmacists.

I have a few questions for you.  Can we trust that Pfizer is the least bit interested in the health, welfare and wealth of pharmacists?  What is the NASPA?  How can they help me with “Hurry Sickness” if I don’t even know who they are?  Are independents so clueless that

they can’t gain patient loyalty on their own?

I’m not buying it.  My friend Rick on Lopez Island in the San Juans is doing just fine all on his own.  He owes me an ice cream sundae if I ever make it to his store. 

My good friend RxJoe in Boston does not need Pfizer’s help.  Although he would like the same discount on Lipitor that Pfizer gives Wal-Mart. 

Then there is Nathan in North Dakota.  He is doing just fine.  He was a very smart rat when he left the Seattle area and went back to the state that requires that pharmacists actually own the pharmacies. 

I think that Pfizer is blowing smoke.  This is a whitewash.   They are throwing a little bit of money around so pharmacists acclaim “Oh, my goodness, I am peeing myself because Pfizer is so generous with us.”  It is like the oil companies greenwashing by putting out a pittance for television commercials telling how GREEN they are. 

Are we so stupid we are actually buying this?

Then there is the “Patient Centric” comment.  I have been practicing PATIENT-CENTRIC

pharmacy for 40+ years.  In retail, is there any other kind?  I do not need a Power Point

demonstration from Pfizer, the NCPA or anyone else to know how to be a patient-centric pharmacist. 

I could just roll along here, but I won’t.  I want to hear what you think about any Big Pharma company stroking you. 

Pilots on Food Stamps

 An Email from Michael Moore, the documentary film maker

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“The pilots would like to see you in the cockpit when we land.”  The flight attendant had a southern drawl.   “They have something to show you.” (The last time an employee of an airline wanted to show me something it was her written reprimand for eating an in-flight meal without paying for it. “Yes,” she said, “we have to pay for our own meals on board now.”)

The plane landed and I stepped into the cockpit. “Read this,” the first officer said. He handed me a letter from the airline to him. It was headlined “LETTER OF CONCERN.” It seems this poor fellow had taken three sick days in the past year. The letter was a warning not to take another one — or else.

Do any of you pharmacists get sick pay?

He then showed me his pay stub. He took home $405 this week. My life was completely and totally in his hands for the past hour and he’s paid less than the kid who delivers my pizza.

Ah Ha, so there is a skilled worker who is paid less than pharmacists. 

Most of you make more than $405 a day.  And you are whining?  Technicians do better than that.

I told the guys that I have a whole section in my new movie about how pilots are treated (using pilots as only one example of how people’s wages have been slashed and the middle class decimated). In the movie I interview a pilot for a major airline who made $17,000 last year. For four months he was eligible — and received — food stamps. Another pilot in the film has a second job as a dog walker.

“I have a second job!,” the two pilots said in unison. One is a substitute teacher. The other works in a coffee shop. You know, maybe it’s just me, but the two occupations whose workers shouldn’t be humpin’ a second job are brain surgeons and airline pilots. Call me crazy.

I told them about how Capt. “Sully” Sullenberger (the pilot who safely landed the jet in the Hudson River) had testified in Congress that no pilot he knows wants any of their children to become a pilot. Pilots, he said, are completely demoralized. He spoke of how his pay has been cut 40% and his own pension eliminated. Most of the TV news didn’t cover his remarks and the congressmen quickly forgot them. They just wanted him to play the role of “HERO,” but he was on a more important mission. He’s in my movie.

“I hadn’t heard anywhere that this stuff about the airlines is in this new movie,” the pilot said.

“No, you wouldn’t,” I replied. “The press likes to talk about me, not the movie.”

So, all of my colleagues who think that they can get a better gig just by taking their nascent intelligence and charm edlsewhere (Not in the profession) please report back after your first week with over time that cashes out to $3120.00 for the week. Good Luck!  Has there ever been food stamps in your purse since you became an RPh.

So………..I’m getting a new gig.

One where I can work inside, keep my hands clean, have an opportunity to make a difference every day and earn $10,000.00 a month.  Here’s an idea.  What do you think?

Courtesy of Tamzid, RPh.  He thought about Jay Pee during a trek through India and Nepal.

This is not a forbidden issue, but I have to talk about it.  It has happened too many times to remain silent.  This is not a small thing.  It can be very dangerous if wrong information is taken as the truth.

Vermont has had “Technician Listing” for about 8 years.  I cannot call it licensing or certification or registration because all it takes is for the owner of a pharmacy to fill out a questionnaire, send it to the Secretary of State’s office.  This is a small state.  600,000 people.  They don’t have the money or a reason to have a big old Board of Pharmacy staff.  One secretary does just about everything.  There are more pharmacists in Contra Costa County in California than there are in the whole state of Vermont.  The one secretary does a really good job.

My mentioning the tech situation in Vermont is to illustrate a point about dangerous information.  Victoria was a technician at Kinney Drug in Morrisville, Vermont before she could not stand it anymore.  She became a “Patient Advocate” for a very large dental practice.  Her job was to go after money from insurance companies on behalf of the patients.  At this dental practice, the patients were very clear that the responsibility for payments was theirs.  The practice would bill the insurance, but, in the end, if the insurance would not pay,

the patient would be billed.  Victoria was really good on the telephone.  She once nailed an insurance company middle manager so good that he sent a $4,000.00+ check FedEx overnight.

Anyway, at Kinney, the technicians were far from professional.  The district manager told Victoria, “I’ve never hired a licensed technician before.”  So, you know the quality of technicians.  The pharmacists, by the way, cried alligator tears when Victoria bailed.  Her number one rule for working in a pharmacy was, “Protect the pharmacist’s back at all times, under all circumstances.” 

One habit that led to her looking for work outside of Vermont pharmacy was that the “technicians” answered questions that should go to the pharmacist.  The final straw was when a patient used the blood pressure machine and asked if 190/110 was bad.  He was in overalls.  A dairy farmer who may not have been to see a doctor is years.  The “technician” answered, “If you’ve drunk coffee today, that’s probably why it is high.”  This was not isolated.  The techs were constantly counseling.  V was gone at the first chance of a job away from a Vermont pharmacy.

My Vermont gold standard case was a young, high-strung woman, who took her daily dose of Effexor.  A young woman paid for her prescription of Effexor and directed a question to me.

“Is this any good?  I really can’t get happy.”

I didn’t even have a chance to answer.  The clerk (she didn’t even work in the pharmacy) jumped right in and started to answer the question.  It made no difference to me what the answer was.  I asked the patient if she wanted me to answer the question or did she want an answer from the clerk.

She chose ME and that pissed off the clerk.  She was having a shit fit after the patient left.  I had embarrassed her.  I told her to never presume that she has any authority in any matter in the pharmacy.  She started to argue.  I sent her home.  The owner complained that clerks were hard to find.  I asked her how hard was it to get a pharmacist.  I further told her to never schedule that clerk when I was working.

So, techs counseling is a bad thing.  Get this:  Yesterday, a patient asked me this question when I came over to counsel him “I am in a hurry, but is there anything I need to know about Lexapro?”

I did not get a chance to say one word.  The customer standing beside him told him that he didn’t like Lexapro.  The next thing I know is that the patient had turned his back on me.  Body language:  Get lost, pharmacist.  So, I did.  I went back to the prescription mill.  I noticed that they talked for almost 5 minutes.  Perhaps they are started a support group for “People-with-the-blues-who-talked-their-primary-care-provider-into-a-prescription.”  The belief that there is a drug for everything keeps us busy.. Job security!  Buy Big Pharma stocks.

I just did not feel up to saying what Jay Pee would usually say, “Do you want to talk with me, the pharmacist?  Or do you want to talk with him, the customer?”

video-9

Jay Pee is a hopelessly INSTITUTIONALIZED Pharmacist. Click on “Video-9″

I do my best to be very precise about how I use the language. It makes V a little crazy on occasion, but the words mean something, I tell her. It does not work to use the word ‘always’ when ‘once in awhile’ is more accurate. Is exaggeration a female thing?

Pharmacists have been mixing up the ‘JOB’ and the ‘PROFESSION’ for years. You can read comments on the drive-through post that do that right here. Pharmacists will often write things like:

“This profession is a piece of crap and I’m getting out as soon as I can find a different way to make $10,000.00 a month.”

“You students would be smart to pull the plug right now and find another way to make a living. The profession of pharmacy is the arm pit.”

“I would never encourage any young person to go into pharmacy. The working conditions are terrible. You can’t eat lunch. You are expected to work 12 hour shifts with no breaks. Be a teacher. You can have the summers off.”

You have heard those kinds of remarks over and over again. Well, you know what I have to say……”Tough SHIT”.

It is your own damn fault if you don’t get 15 minutes to eat an uninterrupted meal. You have become so used to Fritos, Diet Coke and a Snickers that your wife thinks you are ill when you can’t finish the good meals she cooks.

You are so accustomed to multi-tasking and instantaneous results on the computer that you have forgotten how to have a conversation with your 13 year old daughter. She already knows you are stupid and you confirm it every time she wants to talk. I can see your eyes glaze over. Your daughter wants to share the whole story. She wants to squeal and have you laugh with her. You just want her to get at the point. She is offering a gift and you reject it. Eventually, she just gives up and shares no more.

It’s your problem if you work 12 hour shifts. Say NO, find another job.

You are the idiot who keeps on working when you have to go pee and dribble in your underpants.

You have earned the vacation….. Take it! It is not your fault that the company gives you 4 weeks and wants you to take it a week at a time, but never in the summer. It becomes your fault when you have worked for this company for 15 years and still have not been ALLOWED to take the three week “Honeymoon” in Italy that you promised your husband 15 years ago when the best you could get was a long weekend in Bakersfield.

That’s the JOB. Not the profession. How can you possibly not see that? The profession of pharmacy is just fine. It is the JOB that is often undignified. It is the JOB that you are not proud of.

You may not feel much self-worth because of the JOB. Trust me, if you want a JOB that is dignified, one that gives you self-respect and a sense of integrity, you could have one. You and most of your colleagues have put up with a humiliating situation week after week, month after month, decade after decade. That’s your own fault.

It is the JOB that can be problematic. The profession is fine.

So, my friends, when you bitch and moan and whine… be precise. Put the blame where the blame belongs. With your JOB and with YOU.

This is a short story, but both humorous and poignant. I was walking along the antacid section of the drug store. A gentleman was squatting down to look at items on the bottom shelf. I was about to walk by him when he glanced up, grabbed his chest and fell backwards. He looked up at me and a certain terror left his eyes.

He said something in Spanish. The only words I caught were “Haysoos” and “Kristos”.

At that moment a Spanish speaking employee, who heard the whole thing, told me what he had said.

“Jim, he said that he thought you were Jesus Christ.”

“What?”

She shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes. “He thought you were Jesus Christ.”

By now the man was standing. His look was sheepish. His wife had found him. She held up a bottle of Tums, looked at me, and rubbed her stomach.

The Spanish speaker said, “She wants to know if this is the best.” I eventually recommended Rolaids (Magnesium Hydroxide).

“Wait about the Tums! I want to know why he thought I was Jesus Christ.” It isn’t everyday that a pharmacist is mistakenly taken for the Christian Messiah. There had to be a reason. I was cleanly shaven. My hair isn’t long. I noticed that this couple was very well dressed in casual clothing. His rings were brilliant. The wife’s shoes were Ostrich, I think. She was much calmer, more aristocratic than her husband. I could see money, lots of it.

It turned out that they were from Costa Rica. Their grade school age daughter was at the Shriners Burn Hospital. They had chartered a jet to Houston, along with a Costa Rican doctor and two nurses. It was a tossup whether the daughter would live or die. The father explained excitedly to the Spanish speaking employee that he really did see Jesus Christ when he looked up at me, but that I transformed from Jesus to Jim Plagakis after he fell on his bottom.

“Tell them that I will put white light around their daughter “. White light satisfies my New Age sensibilities, but I wanted to satisfy HIS sensibilities. I looked him in the eyes and said, “Tell him that I will pray for his daughter and that God was working for her just in getting her to Shriners.”

The father became excited. He gave me his business card. A hotel in a coastal area called Golfo de Papagayo. He said that he would comp me a good room if I ever made it to Costa Rica. The card had Esq. after his name (Lawyer).

Perhaps, I could have gotten the Presidential Suite if I really had been Jesus Christ.

I neglected to include this part of the story. The wife told the Spanish-speaking employee that she had gone to their suite at the San Luis Resort for some sleep. The father refused. He had spent the night in the hospital’s chapel, praying for Jesus to save his daughter. He prayed straight through. No sleep. No food.

This space will be used for a conversation about the dreaded drive-through.  The pluses as well as the minuses. 

 Some examples of when the Drive-Through Pharmacy Window is a good thing.

Number Two…

This has got to be a plus for the drive-through because I got such a kick out of it.  Anything that tickles me like this incident did belongs in the “Drive-Through Hall of Distinction”.

A few months ago, again close to ten o’clock on a Friday evening, the drive-through buzzer went off.  I looked and there was nobody there.  I cut off the buzzer and continued to do some last minute closing up tasks.  I had been eating popcorn (typical pharmacist meal).  The floor is carpeted and we don’t have a broom so I was bending down and was picking up the pips with two fingers.  Arrrrgh.  You gotta be my age after eight hours to understand how the hips feel. 

The buzzer again and again no car.  I disengaged the buzzer and bent over again.  The buzzer.  Was it conked out and somehow wrecked?  I walked over this time and there was a guy standing at the drive-through.

“Sir,” I explained, “I can’t serve you at the drive-through.  It is too dangerous and our insurance will not cover liability for a “pedestrian” at the drive-through.

“I just want my prescription.”  He gave me a look.  A scowl.   This guy was trapped in the 1970s.  He looked like Joe Namath.  He had the hair, the slick shirt open at the collar two buttons and a heavy gold chain with a thick Italian Horn dangling in his chest hair.

“Man, you need to come into the store.”  He didn’t look as stupid as Namath so I said, “Sir, you understand about liability and the insurance not covering if a visitor from Dallas Texas cutie with a cell phone at her ear, driving a Hummer , runs over and kills your ass.  Even worse, severs your spinal column and you have to learn to write with a crayon between your teeth.”

“Shit, man.  Just sell me my damn prescription.”

“I can’t. 

Just come in.”

“I can’t.  I saw my ex-wife’s car in the lot and I can’t let her see me.”  Joe Namath struck a pose and I hardly could keep from laughing. 

He raised his nose and postured with his arms folded.  “I owe her alimony and child support.  I can’t let her see me.  She thinks I’m in El Paso.”

I kept a smile.  “You know it is right now coming up to ten o’clock.  If you don’t come into the store in the next few minutes, you’ll be out of luck for today.”

He gave me the finger and started walking.  I have no idea why he was on his feet.  However, I did check the prescription he wanted.  Cialis.

 Number One.

 few weeks ago, on a Friday night, I received a phone call at 9:55PM.  I was cleaning up to close at 10:00 PM.  The nurse identified herself as from Shriners Burn Hospital For Children.  It is just a few blocks from where I work.

She started listing off prescriptions including hydrocodone/APAP liquid, an antibiotic & Two big tubs of Silvadene and a few others.  I told her that I closed in 5 minutes.

“Oh no, but you have to fill these for this child.  We’ll have to admit her if she can’t get this medicine tonight.”

“They will lock the store and they will not let anyone in.”

“You must accommodate this child.”  This nurse was a take charge girl.  “You are a pharmacist and your pharmacy has to do more than just sell cosmetics and beach chairs. 

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You have to wait for these parents.”

She was right!  I had walked over to the drive-through just to look out the window.  Ah ha!  “Tell her to come to the Drive-Through Window.  I’ll alert the store manager on duty that I’m here as long as it takes.”

Management always wants to get oudda there on Friday night, but she waited patiently until around 10:25 PM.

 

Galveston has a 25% black population.   I deal with them every work day and I see African Americans out and about.  I did not realize how sensitive the political nastiness has made people.  Nerves are at the surface.

Jay Pee is not a racist even though I probably would cross the street if I was walking on the sidewalk in Houston and saw a group of black gang-banger looking guys at the street corner two blocks away. 

Awhile back, I was called over to the counter by a good-looking African America man of a thirty-something age.  He had just used our sphygmomanometer to take his blood pressure.

“Is 195 over 120 bad?”  He knew.  He just needed me to say it.

“That’s really high, man.  You need to get to a doctor today.” 

“I don’t have a doctor.”

“Go to the UTMB Urgent Care Clinic on Harborside.  Those numbers made it URGENT.”

He asked me why it was so high.  Was it is diet?  His lifestyle?  Too much beer?  Did he need to exercise more?   Why was it so high?

I almost got myself physically accosted with my answer.  I said, “It’s too much BLACK.”

“What the f**** you sayin’, man?”  He stepped closer.  “What’s this too much BLACK shit?  I think I should kick your mother f*****g ass, you white mother f*****r.”

I stepped back and showed him my palms.  “Man, I’m just telling you the hard truth.  The number one group in danger for a stroke is YOUNG, BLACK and MALE.”  This guy could really hurt me.  I backed away.

He stepped back then.  He eyed me warily.  “You telling me I could get a stroke?”

“J.R. Richard,” I said.  “Houston Astros pitcher headed for a Cy Young Award had a stroke when he was jogging in center field before a game.  He could have had a Hall of Fame career.  ”

“Yeah.”  He got wide-eyed.  “That could happen to me?”

“J.R. Richard wasn’t even 30 years old.”

“Yeah, he was black and male too.”  The guy studied me.  “I better get to a doctor huh?”

About four hours later, I saw three prescriptions for him.  HCTZ, atenolol and amlodipine.  I made it a point to ring him out.

“Ah, hey, man. I mean,” he stumbled.  “I mean, I’m sorry for all of that mother f*****r stuff and gonna kick your ass stuff.  You were really trying to help me.”

“Well I could have just explained it to you rather than what I said.”

He smiled.  “We cool?”

“We cool!”  I said.