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Rex Hall just got back from the Annual Pharmacists Convention.  

For reasons that nobody is sure of, but had to involve someone’s brother-in-law getting a payoff of some kind, it was held in Michigan in January.  I suppose if you’re from that neck of the woods you don’t think anything about getting out when it’s single digits or below and there is a cold wet white substance covering everything, including highways.  But if you’re from Fort Stockton, Texas it makes no damn sense whatsoever.

The entire experience was fraught with poor decisions and critical mistakes, not really like Rex.  I mean one slip up in his line of work and your ED medication gets substituted for someone’s psoriasis pills and before you know it your wife thinks you don’t find her attractive anymore and your neighbor’s head won’t stop itching.  He needs to be on his game 24/7.

Of course, a lot of the problems may have been associated with his wife making the travel arrangements.  She was upset about not being able to attend the convention with him and was not exactly cooperative in making the trip as enjoyable for him as she might could have been.  She knew the convention and all the workshops were taking place at The Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit, but made his hotel reservations at some place that looked like it should be rented by the hour in Ypsilanti.

“It’s our slow time of year at Rex Hall Drug,” she told him.  “No point in spending more than we need to on a room.  You’ll just be sleeping there, anyway.”  She knew it was nearly an hour away.  Same thing with the rent car she arranged for.  She was actually able to find a 2007 Toyota Corolla LE rental car that was still in someone’s fleet because it only had 3,800 miles on the odometer.

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Now Rex is not a small man.  And despite the fact that his wife has attempted to get him to go gluten-free and watch what he eats, the man can do some damage at the Salad Wagon over at K-Bob’s.  Not to mention the cat-head muffins that they just keep bringing to the table as long as you keep eating them.  Even with the seat pushed all the way back, there was barely room for all of Rex to squeeze in behind the wheel of the Corolla.  “Maybe skip the second and third trips to the salad wagon,” she admonished when he complained about the tiny sedan the first time he called home from Michigan.

Anyway, the workshop titled Child-Proof Caps and You went long on the third day of the conversion due to some guy from Scottdale constantly raising his hand and asking questions.  Apparently the large number of seniors not being able to open their medications in Scottsdale has almost reached crisis levels.  By the time the last question was answered and the cooped up pharmacists spilled out of the conference room, they headed straight to the bar of the hotel.

Those who looked out the window saw the snow accumulating in pretty significant amounts outside, but didn’t worry about it because they had rooms in the hotel.  Rex, entertaining folks with his southern accent and Texas brand of folks, inappropriate humor, never even glanced outside.  It was three in the morning before the midnight meeting of medicine makers finally shut down the bar.

Rex made his way out to the rented Corolla, three sheets to the wind and in no condition to drive, but determined to make it back to Ypsilantis for some shut-eye before departing Detroit the next morning.  That’s where things took a turn.

Somewhere halfway between Motor Town and Ypsilanti, Rex passed out and the Corolla slid off the road and wedged in a snowbank.  Not long after, Michigan Trooper C. B. Pearlman found the car stuck in the snow, the engine still running.  After pulling up behind it with the lights  on his 1991 Police Ford Ranger SuperCab flashing, Pearlman walked up to the driver’s door and found Rex passed out in the driver’s seat of the Corolla.  He tapped on the window, attempting to wake Rex up.

Well, when Rex woke up and saw the flashing lights behind him, snow covering everything in sight, and a trooper standing outside his window, he panicked, shifted the Corolla into drive, and hit the gas.  The speedometer showed 20, 30, 40, then 50 MPH.  But the Toyota was still stuck in the snow.  Trooper Pearlman, known locally for his sense of humor, started running in place right next to the Corolla, like he was keeping up with Rex.

Rex freaked out, thinking the trooper was actually keeping up with him.  After about 30 seconds, the trooper yelled, “PULL OVER!”  Rex took his foot off the accelerator and shut off the engine.  Of course, he never made it back to Ypsilanti that morning, but spent some time behind bars while everything was sorted out.  He missed his flight back home.  

Add to that there are no direct flights to Fort Stockton Regional Airport and Feedlot.  The motto of Air Goodman is “You Can’t Get There From Here”.  By the time all the connecting flights had been rebooked, he was three days late getting back.

Luckily nobody at the Grounds for Divorce ever found out about the whole thing, or he’d have had hell to pay.  It was enough he had to explain it to his wife, who originally thought he’d hooked up with some young chemist from Canada and skedaddled across the border.

Mrs. Hall has said Rex isn’t going to the 2026 convention, even though it’s in Bakersfield.

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