My two New Year’s resolutions are to exercise a half hour every day, and maintain my composure when retail customer service does not meet my expectations. Like if the cashier won’t hang up the phone with her boyfriend, I will just say no to register rage. I have also resolved not to instantly download every update Microsoft throws my way because some of them are half-baked and cause trouble. It’s enough that pharmaceutical companies rush their drugs into the marketplace without sufficient test trials or knowledge of long-term effects on our chromosomes. There’s nothing I can do anymore about future generations of turtleheads, but I refuse to play guinea pig to the latest version of Internet Explorer.
In the midst of all this careful New Year planning, Sunday morning I went to log onto the website where I check our health insurance claims so I know where we stand with our deductible. I entered my member ID and password as usual and the screen said to try again. Because all my screen names and passwords are written down near my computer, I looked over to make sure I wasn’t missing anything and entered it all again. No go. I then repeated these same steps five more times, as if the computer would eventually say, okay, what the hell, you’re logged on. So you already know two things: one, that didn’t happen, and two, I’m a one-trick pony.
I then clicked on Forgot your password? which I hadn’t, but I figured at the very least I’d have them email me the link to set up a new one. Amazingly, the screen responded with the news that this account did not exist in the database. Hmmm. Not one to embrace failure, I clicked on Register Now figuring I’d make an end run around their constitution and set up a fresh account. I filled out the entire registration form using the plastic ID card they sent us, the one we present to our doctors, and the next screen told me there were no such members or claims or hernia surgeries or anything else we’ve shared with their website for the past eight months. Which makes me wonder: If our insurance company says we never existed, is my hernia back?
While I waited for a weekday so I could speak to a live person, I hustled over to Target and bought the AirClimber, a step exerciser from the people who inflicted AbRoller on the general public. Now that Son owns his own home and his room is empty, I set it up in there opposite his old TV with the DVD player. I’ll let you know how that goes as soon as I start using it. In the meantime, since it’s a new year, I flipped through the folder of blog ideas I keep on hand for future entries. Most of them are no longer topical so I’ll start a fresh collection, but one of them is too strange to let go unmentioned.
The following is almost verbatim from a Newsday blurb this past November: Police charged a gang in the remote Peruvian jungle with killing people for their fat. Once the victims were dead, the fat was drained from their corpses and offered for sale on the black market for use in cosmetics. Although medical experts expressed skepticism that a major market for fat existed, three suspects confessed and told police the fat was sold to intermediaries in Lima.
And if that’s not incentive to haul ass onto the AirClimber, I don’t know what is.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos say Think About This
divided faith
painted layers in the subway
empty faces
save us!