Scuti needs a root canal isn’t that wonderful.  So Scuti goes to an Endo-Don-Tist to get a root canal because that is where you go, Scuti has learned recently, when you need to get a root canal.  It goes something like this: Wait, wait, poke, poke, wait, wait, drill drill, scrape, scrape, wait, wait, zap, zap.  Ouch ouch.  Scuti is in some pain so the nice person who isn’t an endo-don-tist but sits in the glass cube and says hello when Scuti arrives and takes Scuti’s money says the Endo-Don-Tist will write a pain medicine prescription for Scuti.  Scuti wants the nice person to call the prescription in to Target pharmacy so Scuti’s pain medicine will be ready for Scuti to take when Scuti gets to the Target pharmacy.  But the nice person says something that is not so nice.  (As an aside, normally, hearing something that is not so nice would make Scuti frown but Scuti can’t frown because of the big needle that filled Scuti’s face with something that makes Scuti feel like the left side of Scuti’s face is melting off.  Instead the nice person’s not so nice words don’t make Scuti frown but just make Scuti’s brain send the frowning signals to Scuti’s melting face when the nice person says they can not call the prescription into Target pharmacy.)  The nice person points to a sign that says “ATTENTION:” in big black letters.  Underneath the big black ATTENTION:, it says:  “Due to a new law (State Bill 151), as of 10/6/2014 Prescribers will no longer be able to phone in or fax most pain medication to Pharmacies.  Paper Prescriptions will need to be picked up in the office.”

Hmmm.  Not too long ago but certainly sometime after 10/6/2014, Scuti’s other doctor called a pain prescription into Target pharmacy and was not at all concerned with State Bill 151.  Scuti doesn’t really get pain prescriptions called into Target all that often but still, Scuti starts to get that “Everything is not Kosher at the Endo-Don-Tist” kind of feeling and takes that feeling, together with the paper prescription, and goes to Target pharmacy.

Scuti has lots of time to wait for Scuti’s pain medication so instead of playing FruitNinja on the iPhone Scuti googles “State Bill 151” to see what there is to see about why people in Sacramento want to keep the Endo-Don-Tist from calling Scuti’s pain medication prescription into Target pharmacy.  Scuti is thinking all the while that people in Sacramento probably already have enough to do trying to figure out how to make supertrains go from Sacramento to Los Angeles without bankrupting California.  Scuti sees that State Bill 151 is about limiting tobacco sales to minors.  In fact, State Bill 151 is called the “Stop Tobacco Access to Kids Enforcement Act.”  Hmmm, again.  Scuti is thinking this is even less Kosher than before.

Scuti is in a quandary but just has to be content with the thought that the Endo-Don-Tist is a professional who has spent many many more years in school than Scuti ever will and must know many things that Scuti does not know.  Among those things that Scuti was not aware of, apparently, was that tobacco products must be a primary pain medication for Endo-Don-Tist related pain!  Scuti thinks, “Of course!” that must be why the nice person referred Scuti to a law that has to do with stopping tobacco access to kids.  OK, everything is better now.  Scuti isn’t exactly a kid but, close enough.  Scuti feels so silly.

But then Scuti does not feel so silly because the nice person at the Target pharmacy tells Scuti that Scuti’s pain medication is ready and Scuti is surprised to see that the pain medication is not tobacco at all.  In fact it is only ibuprofen.  Scuti is thinking “for this Scuti needed a prescription?”

Scuti does not feel silly at all any more.  Just kind of angry and kind of inconvenienced and kind of like you feel when your face is melting off.  All at once.  Scuti feels kind of sorry for the nice person in the glass cube because the nice person either has seriously confused her State Bills or has made a bad typo on her sign and it is some other State Bill that keeps the Endo-Don-Tist from calling Scuti’s pain medication into Target pharmacy.  Scuti likes to think good thoughts and doesn’t want to think that the nice person is fibbing (or something stronger than fibbing) to everyone she shows the ATTENTION sign to.  Maybe she doesn’t know that its about tobacco and minors.  In that case, shame on the Endo-Don-Tist.  Scuti can not think of any other reason for the ATTENTION sign other than maybe it is just easier for the nice people at the Endo-Don-Tist to write a little piece of paper than to call the Target pharmacy on the telephone.  In that case they could have saved ink and just made a sign that says: “ATTENTION: We are lazy.”

Or they could have just given Scuti a couple of Tylenol.