Murphy and the Door Mat

I recently bought a colorful mat that has paw prints printed on it and says "Wipe Your Paws". I put it at the back door on the deck where Murphy, my bed dog, goes in and out frequently. But Murphy won't step on it! He jumps over or carefully steps around it when the door is opened. He used to spring straight up at the door handle when he wanted to come in. Now he doesn't, because he'd have to touch the mat to do so. I don't think dogs can see colors, and he certainly isn't being defiant of the message since he can't read (at least to my knowledge--though he likes to lie in my lap while I do). The texture is smooth so it wouldn't hurt his feet to touch it. I can't figure out what the problem is, except that it's something different.

Well, I guess we must chalk it up as one more of Murphy's delightful idiosyncrasies!

Happiness Is Card Boxes

It's the "little things" in life that can make a big difference. One success I recently had has really made me happy. I had spent literally hours at the computer searching the Internet for clear plain plastic boxes to put double decks of bridge cards in. I entered every variation of key words I could think of and ended up only finding manufacturers or vendors of cards, sellers of all kinds of plastic boxes except what I wanted, or suppliers in the Far East whose minimum orders were in the thousands. Finally, late the Friday afternoon before Labor Day, I called a card supplier and reached a "real person" who knew what I wanted and told me I could order 25 at 67 cents each from a companion company of theirs. She wasn't sure what the shipping would be--thought it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $8.00--so I said charge me $8.75, which would bring the entire order up to $25.00--or $1 each. (I love round numbers.) It was with trepidation that I gave her my credit card number, but I trusted the company, so I placed the order and waited. The box arrived today and they were exactly what I had been looking for! Oh, happy day! Ashley at Kardwell, you have brought such joy to my being!

HOW Much Difference?

I have been trying to find out what the prices of my prescriptions would be at WalMart, where most everyday items are less expensive, vs. CVS, which is more convenient to my home.

Both pharmacies would quote the "list price" for drugs but not the prices I would pay with my Medicare drug insurance policy. I am in what is called the "doughnut hole" which means I and the insurance company have spent more than $2700 this calendar year and I no longer qualify for insurance coverage--but I still pay less than "full price" for prescriptions due to the pharmacies' contracts with the insurance company. The only way to see what I would be charged is to have the prescriptions filled at WalMart. So I did.

For 4 prescriptions at a total price of just over $345, the difference between WalMart and CVS was $1.21--definitely not enough to pay for travelling an extra 6 miles and spending an extra 20 minutes picking them up! All generic prescriptions do not fall under the advertised $4 price at Wally World, so I actually paid more for one generic than at CVS.

So next month I will switch back to CVS. What an exercise in futility and time wasted!