Sophie's Story

   Hi This is Colby.     Scamp has been telling me how much fun it is to give a speech. He goes on and on about it.  He thought that I might like to give a speech. I wasn't so sure. I'm very quiet and kind of shy. Scamp said it would be fun and that I should try it. So I did.    I decided I would talk about how I came to live with C and Sophie.    It was kind of a scary story. I was born in a shed and my mother took care of me and my siblings. My mother was a good mother. She took good care of us and taught us how to hunt.    Slowly some of our family went missing. Every few days some one would disappear. My mother was very sad but there was nothing she could do. She taught us to be wary of humans. Some of them were good, but some of them were not. She taught us it was best to avoid them.    Eventually I was left alone. Everyone had disappeared. I lived in the shed hunting by night and sleeping by day. I did all right but I missed my siblings and I was all alone.    One

   It all started with an email. There was a conference call. It was important. Be sure to be on it. The entire relief pool were copied on the email. I wasn't worried. There had been some changes regarding rules on opioid dispensing. It was probably an update to make sure all the relief pharmacists knew about the rules and what to do.   C and I ate dinner and C mentioned that this might be something serious. More serious than what I was thinking. Well, I thought, perhaps they were going to close a few stores. I wasn't too worried.    It was time for the call. A male voice came on the line and started to take a roll call to make sure all stores were in on it. I began to feel sick. The upper level management in the pharmacy department were all women. This was not going to be good. The fact that they were taking roll to make sure all the stores were represented make me feel sicker.   Then the president of the company came on. He announced that in one week all the pharmacies w

   Like most people our age, we are trying to clean up our diet and eat more healthy foods. We're trying to eat less bread and more fruits and vegetables. We're also trying to eat a bit less meat. Sometimes we crave a good brisket. When those cravings hit there is only one place to go, Dickey's Barbecue Pit.   It doesn't sound like a good place,pit is not a positive word. In this case though it is a very good thing. We hopped into the car and headed into a nearby suburb to feast on brisket.   It wasn't long before we were in the restaurant. It is very spartan. The chair and tables are plain and utilitarian. The floors are concrete and the air is filled with the scent of smoking meat.   We went to the counter to order our food. C bantered with the guys behind the counter. He's been here many times and has made friends with them. (He makes friends with everyone almost everywhere or at least tries to.) We ordered two brisket plates. I had a side of col

   Life has a funny way of throwing curve balls at you. It seems like the last two years the things I had planned and thought would happen didn't. I'm reminded of the quote, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." (Allen Saunders)   That's surely right. If someone would have told me two years ago that'd I'd be working as a relief pharmacist, I would have laughed or maybe cried. At the beginning of my career there was a high demand for pharmacists. There were a few hardy souls who did relief work because they chose to. Mostly though, relief pharmacists were those that could not find jobs anywhere else. I worked with some truly awful ones. One of them was a man from "Brer-mid-gee" whose personal hygiene habits were so bad that customers complained about his body odor.  He also felt he would be a better manager of the pharmacy than I was (I was acting manager covering a maternity leave.) that he actively lobbied with the s