Whenever Grandpa ran a stop light or forgot to put on his blinker when he changed lanes he said, “I like to follow the spirit of the law. The letter kills.”

We were all pretty skeptical about that, but today we ran into a situation we think might qualify for a Grandpa Milo type approach. I order my prescriptions from the only mail-order place approved by our insurance. They have good prices and represented that after they confirmed my identification and the validity of the prescriptions, most of the time they would just send them. The service has really been pretty good, but they have sent an email every month asking me to call in to confirm new information (or, in most cases, stuff I had already confirmed). The drugs I need are nothing more the benign high blood pressure, high cholesterol medications, nothing heavy at all.

Last month, I was slammed, so Lorena called in for me. They said even though she was my wife, they needed to talk to me. This month, with everything going on, I asked her to tried again.

When she called, a lady told her, “We cannot talk to you, we have to talk to Kenneth.”

She said, “I am Kenneth.”

The lady said, “Mame, are you really Kenneth?”

She said, “I am.”

After a series of fairly intense questions they went ahead and sent her the prescription. I told her afterward she should have acted mad that they did not respect her gender. I think Lorena has that “spirit of the law” thing down pat, but I probably should be ashamed.