As those of you among my millions of devoted readers probably know, I recently had a not-so-positive experience with the currently fashionable designer-drug Ambien.

One of my coworkers recently brought up an interesting point about this: I can't return the unused portion of the prescription to get my money back. This is just too utterly, utterly stupid.

If I bite into a hamburger and find something nasty in it, I can go back to the counter and demand my money back. I can say something like this:

"I found a whole chicken beak in my hamburger, you sick bastards. I want my money back. Not a portion of it; not half of it; not 75%: I want the entirety of my $2.99 to be returned, and I want it now."

What's really cool about a nasty hamburger is that you can do this, too:

"Not only do I want my money back, but I also want to pick the chicken beak out of my burger, and then I want to eat the rest of it. If you do not permit me to do this, then I will put up a Yahoo! Geocities web site that does nothing but spread the word that Burger Palace is a dishonest company which is in the habit of inserting miscellaneous chicken products into hamburgers that should only contain hormone-injected cattle, kangaroo meat, and the occasional bit of soy."

But, take drugs on the other hand. Think about the reaction this might elicit at the pharmacy:

"This drug, for which I had to take out a small loan on account of my not having any health insurance, did not only fail to behave as advertised, but went above and beyond the call of duty by causing me to hallucinate and make embarrassing phone calls to my friends. I would like for you, at this point in time, to take over payments on the loan, to refund the portion of the loan I have already paid, and to free me of any future financial obligation that might result from the terms of the loan, which might include but not be limited to the possession of your pharmacy should you fail to fulfill your role as the assumed borrower responsible for the entire sum, including interest, of the lended amount, e pluribus unum, so help you God."

You can't say this. You can't even say anything approaching this. The likelihood of your ever seeing that $35.00 again is about zero.

So, where does this leave you? I'll tell you: It leaves you in possession of nine perfectly good hallucinogenic pills. In addition, people who have been reading your blog are probably interested in sampling this drug on account of the rousing story recounted herein on a previous date.

Do you see where I'm going with this? In case you don't, I'll spell it out for you (I'll even arrange it in a grammatically sensible manner, allowing you to easily comprehend the meaning of the words that I will be spelling): My pharmacy is turning me into a drug dealer. Because it will not (unlike fine establishments such as Burger Palace) allow me to return damaged or defective goods for a full refund, I am going to have to take to the streets and sell these little bastard pills one by one. What's worse is that selling drugs is just a gateway criminal activity. By this time next week, I'll probably be prostituting myself on skid row, living off of your tax dollars. The injustice, then, is not just to me, the guy who got screwed out of tons of dough for lame drugs, but to the rest of you, too. The worse it gets for me, the worse it's going to get for you.

Think about it. When I'm removed from a hotel room, my pupils dilated to the max from some bizarre substance that I had injected a few minutes prior, infected with an STD that will require several expensive anti-bacterial shots to sensitive areas, and puking on myself, who do you think is going to pay for it? Me? I don't have any money. Remember: I got into this mess by trying to recover a few bucks from a crooked pharmacy. The burden will be on you, my friend. You should all be billing that pharmacy directly.

Anyway, if anybody wants to buy some pills, thereby foiling my plan to become a parasite on the common man, I'm selling them for $15.00 a pop. I'm also offering them with a senior/academic discount, so if you're "55 or better" or still in elementary school (or both), then I'll let them go for $10.00 a hit.

If you think this is sick, then think about how awful it will be if you don't buy these drugs from me.