My Tangent - Cleaning Office, Phonebots, and the Happy Bill

Morning,

I digress from my genealogy for a bit.

The old lady across the street… or should I politely say, the lady who is my senior who lives across the street… has been continually cleaning her home office for the past 20 plus years. I couldn't realize that it would take anyone that long to move that fast. Whenever we ask her about life, she always mentions that she’s been cleaning her office. And she has been retired for a number of years and it’s the one room in her large home that at times, when I’m over there, I’m somewhat leery of entering for fear that I may end up in a green plastic bag. Never mind the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, or the ancillary rooms, I wonder what is her intrinsic fascination of the perpetual office clean up?

A note of warning about membership-covered, mail-order pharmacies. Most recently I’ve been getting phonebot recordings asking if I would like to refill a prescription. My immediate response is to hang-up. I’ll order and re-order prescriptions online, but I have an aversion to phonebots, especially of the pharmaceutical variety. It’s bad enough having to listen to a phonebot menu when I initiate a telephone call. I will not respond to a phonebot calling me.

I called my pharmacy and requested that I not receive the neo-friendly, computerized, automatic reminders. Period!

The next thing I knew, without my requesting such action, I was receiving phonebot calls announcing that such-and-such a prescription had been automatically refilled and was on its way through the United States Postal Service.

I am not ancient, even though I spend most of my waking hours researching my past genealogy. I am not backwards. I am not devoid of modern know-how. I am a strong proponent of modern technology. But modern technology is a tool for me to choose; for me to decide how to use it. I refuse to allow it to manage my decisions…

And after, when I finally got through to a human being, I think he was, after pressing through a number of phonebot representatives, it took an hour and his semblance of surprise for me to convince him to turn off any switch that had been initiated to automatically renew any and all of my prescriptions.

He, the human rep, tried to convince me as to the time savings and ease of facility this feature would provide me. My immediate response was that I am the one in control of my body and of what poisons and chemicals I put into it. I stated that no drug-pushing marketing and/or sales department is going to use me, in a roundabout heartfelt manner, to enhance their number projections. Period!

And the third issue on My Tangent this morning… is just too preposterous to believe. Let alone is just too, too amazing. Michigan Republican U.S. House Representative Thaddeus George McCotter, known to his friends as Thad, has introduced a new bill called the Happy Act. His co-sponsors are Democrats Steve Cohen and Jared Polis. If the bill ever does pass it would mean that I would be liable to receive a tax credit of $14,000.00 annually… $3,500.00 for each “qualified pet”. Thank you Tobi, Taylor, Tinker and Bella. The summary of the Bill is at this link.

It’s nice to get free money relief now but who’s gonna cover or lose out in the end. I love and take care of my dogs with my own funds, and it ain’t cheap. Whatever happened to relief for credit card interest and fees? That disappeared in the late 1980s while the banks and credit card companies are free-wheeling their new fees and charges.

Back to genealogy,

Enjoy,

Jim