I Embark on the Hero’s Journey of Filling My Insulin Prescription

I receive my Call to Adventure in the form of a text. It is not from a real person. It states that a prescription beginning with INS is ready.

The Call to Adventure comes at an inconvenient time. I am inhabiting my Ordinary World, which means I am having a snack and don’t have pants on. Plus, it is 7:58 p.m. and I am pretty sure the CVS cut more staff and reduced its hours. Also, I am not feeling 100 percent and it is only Tuesday. I must Refuse the Call.

A Mentor appears. He says his name is Lodi. He looks like a very famous mentor, but not too much like him, since that mentor’s name and likeness are proprietary to LucasFilm International. I tell him that I have been to Lodi, a lovely town in Bergen County, and in fact I think I dated a girl from there when I was in high school. He tells me this is all an unfortunate coincidence, that the girl was from Englewood, and that in any event we are late to Cross the First Threshold.

I consider ignoring Lodi, but also consider that the journey he proposes to lead me on may be a path to growth and renewal, and that the downtown CVS has those big plastic jars of pretzels stuffed with peanut butter, which I have not had in several weeks and which I am convinced are not really that bad for me. We set forth.

Thus begins the period of Trials and Ordeals. I was not told there would be trials and ordeals. If I knew there would be trials and ordeals then I would have made an effort to hydrate.

My First Challenge comes in the form of Beth, the pharmacy technician. Beth demands my date of birth, which I know, and the Rx Bin code for my insurance policy, which is deeply unknowable. I explain to Beth that I have filled my prescription at this pharmacy many times and that my insurance has not changed. Lodi leads me to the candy aisle while we wait for Beth to sort things out. At first I understand this to be part of the trial, but it turns out that Lodi just wants Swedish Fish.

Stephen is the actual pharmacist. I think he might be an Ally. He might join me on my path and even sacrifice himself for our cause, much like Han being frozen in carbonite at the end of Episode V. I am a fool. Stephen scans a barcode from a sticker that for some reason all CVS pharmacy employees have on the back of their hands. He peers into a screen and tells me that I did not opt out of home delivery of my medication at the end of the plan year, which was in February, which in no world is the end of any fucking year, and as a result I cannot use my insurance here, at the actual physical pharmacy where I always get my medication. I point out that if I failed to opt out of home delivery, then they should have delivered the medication to my home, which they did not. Stephen says that I needed to opt into home delivery for that to happen, and also that my ZIP code is not eligible. The back of Stephen’s hand is hairy and I hope it hurts like hell when he pulls that sticker off.

Lodi is prancing on the counter and shooting fireballs from his staff at pharmacy techs as they fill little plastic baskets with other people’s medication. I begin to suspect that he is some sort of hyperglycemic hallucination, the result of too little insulin and too many Swedish Fish, which he has been generously sharing with me. On the other hand, he has excellent aim and I very much enjoy watching the shelf stuffed with prescriptions for people with last names F through H who knew how to opt out of home delivery go up in flames next to Beth.

I enter my Inmost Cave over the course of a forty-eight minute phone call to Blue Cross Blue Shield, conducted from a plastic chair next to a partition on the other side of which Stephen is vaccinating senior citizens. I admire Stephen for this. He is doubtless on his own Hero’s Journey, as we all must be, even Angela, the Blue Cross rep who is “helping” me understand why I have to pay $275.00 for a medication that was invented in 1921 and sold to the Canadian government for one dollar even though drug patents expire after twenty years and I already paid $1721.00 in premiums this month. I tell Angela that, although he did not explicitly say this, my endocrinologist Dr. Edelman clearly saw this life-saving medication as the Ultimate Boon and, if I could walk out of CVS with my monthly supply, I would be the Master of Two Worlds. Angela tells me that I am only three thousand dollars away from meeting my deductible and wishes me a pleasant evening.

I let Beth charge $275.00 to my Visa card, plus $15.75 for peanut butter pretzels, plus $5.25 for the empty bag of Swedish Fish. Lodi weeps.

I Return with the Elixir at 9:55PM. I am supposed to have achieved the Freedom to Live, and I suppose I have, although at great personal cost, which is as it should be. On the other hand, I got a long receipt full of coupons I will never use. I open the insulin and the pretzels, not in that order. Lodi turns on the TV. We have returned, transformed, and settle in to watch Brooklyn 99 while waiting for the adventure to begin anew.