My uterus causes ten strangers to mix vodka tonics without the tonic

I made ten new enemies today. Or rather, my uterus made ten new enemies. My fallopian tubes snaked across time, space, and state boundaries to antagonize seven women and one man in Texas and two women in Virginia. I am back to square one with the military when it comes to gaining access to the particular birth control I've been using for seven years, and ten people have gone home to yell at their spouses and pour a stiff drink after having dealt with me.

Coincidentally, this is also the week I've decided to kick my addiction to caffeine. I do this every now and then, embark on random, grandiose cold turkey purges and they're less an honest effort to become healthy than they are a test of internal willpower. After today, after having heard so many varieties of hold music and so many varieties of "no," I'm questioning my caffeine embargo.

Here's the long and short of it-- I caused an unforgivable backlog at CVS today establishing the following facts:

1) my birth control is not covered by the military

2) no one can provide any sort of clues as to why

3) at my last duty station, a tragic experiment with my mental health proved the necessity of NOT switching me to a far cheaper alternative medicine, and my access to the Good Shit was restored

4) documentation of this experiment exists in Texas, but not in Virginia, where the insurance people make their scaly nests and eat their young

5) documentation exists in only one town in Texas, and it's not the one I'm currently living in

6) refunding payment for a medication that should have been covered by insurance is many times more complicated than, say, discovering what went wrong on a failed shuttle launch

and 7) If I want this medication, I can get it for free if I drive sixty miles, but if I wanted it filled in the town where I live, it'll cost me $50.

My poor heroic husband got involved at the mention of $50, and between the two of us and ten grumpy people in two states, we've arrived at the following compromise: I will make a day trip to pick up a three-month supply of my Baby-B-Gone, but come July I'll be back, slashing my samurai sword through red tape and demanding that Uncle Sam regulate my hormone levels FOR FREE.