Caterpillars and Catfish

I love that pampered, clean feeling when you walk on freshly pedicured feet for the first time.

My mother-in-law bought me a manicure and a pedicure for my birthday and it was time for me to redeem the gift certificate.  I was totally stoked, because  I was ready for some "me time."  No students.  No husband.  No child. No bills.  No distractions.  No problems.  No worries.

 Just me and my favorite Vietnamese lady and some warm paraffin wax.   I'd relax in the massage chair; she'd scrub my calluses.

 Win. Win. Right?  

Not so much.  

My first inkling that something might be amiss was when I showed up for my appointment.  My "girl"  (their word, not mine) was not there.  She was sick, so they gave me to another woman, Candy.  I never like getting a pedicure with a new person.  I have three or four people that I like, but I have one who is my favorite.   I was a little reticent, but I was ready to be pampered and my hooves definitely needed the help, so I agreed.

Candy ran the water and sprinkled the green rock salt in, and life was good.   

For a moment or two, anyway.  

She let my feet soak for awhile as she attended to someone else.   That was okay with me.  I turned up the vibration and heat in the seat and then turned the massage up on my chair until it looked like I was riding a bucking bronco.  I was going to relax, and I didn't care if it looked like I was having convulsions or not.   It was my time, dangit.   I was going to enjoy it.  I plugged in my earbuds and blissed out on some Adele.   

I was just about to the point of relaxation when I felt my foot being lifted from the water.  She scrubbed and lotioned and massaged my legs with warm stones. Candy lifted up one foot and made a clucking noise, "You need medicine.  Medicine for you feet."   She went and got a brown bottle I had never seen before.   She put another pair of gloves on top of the one she already had on and slathered my feet with the "medicine."

"Medicine good for you feet.  Make soft.  Like baby,"  then she said something in her native tongue and several of the other girls working there looked at my feet and laughed.  

My self-esteem slipped a notch.

At one point, Candy got a drop of it on her arm, and it almost instantly left a pencil eraser sized burn on her forearm.  I freaked out a little at that, but I couldn't feel that it was doing anything to the bottom of my feet. The "medicine" was left on for a little bit, and then she scrubbed and rinsed.  Whenever I asked what it was for (calluses? dead skin? bacteria?  what-for-the-love-of-muffins-is-wrong-with-my-feet?), she would only say "medicine for you feet." 

The rest of the pedicure was divine.  My feet were encased in warm wax, rubbed in seaweed scrub, buffed, and polished.  I was starting to get my pampered groove back.    

After we finished the pedicure, I hobbled over to the manicure table for her to work on my nails.  Due to working on cakes all the time and the fact that tissue paper is thicker than my nails, I keep them super short.   I really just needed them to be polished and the cuticles dealt with.  

Candy spoke limited English and had spoken to me, maybe twice the entire pedicure.   As she sat down at the table with me and examined my nails, she began to cluck like a chicken again and frown.  

"You nails short,"  she said.

"Yes.  I make cakes, " I replied.  "I like my nails short."

"Too short.  Make hand look like man.  Ugly.  Long nail pretty. You need long nail."

And that would be one less dollar that she would be getting for a tip.  Thanks for telling me I have man-hands.   

She kept trying to get me to get fake nails by insulting my "ugly finga-nail."  NOT the way to get me to spend forty-five bucks, but thanks anyway.

I was just settling back into the manicure, starting to relax, and sneaking looks at my hands to see if they really DID resemble Sly Stallone's or Arnold Schwarzenegger's, when she started in on me again.

"We fix you eyebrow?"

"What?"

"You eyebrow...look like cat-ee-pilla crawl on face. Big, black.  We give you sexy Vietnamee eyebrow...make your eyebrow go <POP>" and she made a popping sound with her mouth. 

I self-conciously touched my eyebrow with my free hand.  I knew they needed to be waxed, but a caterpillar?

"I don't know if I have time today.  I'm going on a date later with my husband. Thank you, though," I smiled weakly.

"Ooooohhhhh....date!!!" she whisper-breathed. "You need sexy Vietnamee eyebrow for you man.  Vietnamee eyebrow good for you.  You be lucky time later!!! Sexy Vietnamee eyebrow men love!! Eye go <POP>   Cat-ee-pilla eyebrow no good.  Men like sexy Vietnamee eyebrow. I fix for you. Eyebrow go <POP>.  I fix."  Then, she patted my hand, like I was a truly sad case.

Well, when you put it like that.... How could I turn down "lucky time"?   Or even more how could I turn down a "sexy Vietnamee"  eyebrow when I had caterpillars crawling across my face now? 

My self-esteem was rapidly tanking, so I figured the ten bucks for an eyebrow wax would be worth it.

When my nails were finished, she took me back to the eyebrow room.   I laid down on the table, closed my eyes,  and waited for that first warm shock of wax. 

It didn't come.

I opened my eyes, and Candy was about 8 inches away from my face.

"You want me fix you catfish lip, too?"

"WHAT?!?!"

"You catfish lip.  Hair here.  Hair here.  Hair here.  Look like catfish.  I fix good for you.  Lucky time laaaaater," she sing-songed. "No catfish lip."

Now if my husband had not, just days before looked at me in a restaurant, and said, "My GOSH!  That's a long hair right there," and  then pointed at my lip, I would not have succumbed to the peer pressure.  

But he had... so I did.

"Sure, Candy.  Why don't you wax my lip and my eyebrows?"

"Ooooh!   Good for you!!  I do you chin hair too.  I charge you less since you need much help for lucky time." 

And the hits just keep on coming.

That day I left with my toes sparkling, fingers polished, and a huge goatee-shaped red mark on my face.  Not to mention sexy Vietnamee eyebrow.  I had never been more "beautiful" and felt worse about myself.

Snakes in a Car

I hate snakes.  Hate them.  I know those of you who are mega animal lovers will message me with complaints of how snakes are misunderstood; of how beneficial they are to the environment; of how I should just give them the benefit of the doubt.   Nope.  Not gonna do it.  I know they eat rats and insects and.......

I still hate snakes.

I hate how they crawl. How they stick their little tongues out.  How sneaky quiet they are. How poisonous some of them are.  How ... snake-y they are.  I hate it all.

I hate how when it rains too much around here in the spring and summer, we have little baby snakes that pop up in our yard.  I hate when my hubby comes in and tells me that he killed a big snake while mowing.  I hate how when our tree fell down in the backyard, there was a snake living in the rotten trunk.

When The Bean was a baby, we had a French door as a front door.   She was about nine or ten months old, crawling around everywhere.   I was sitting on the couch one day while she played on the floor.  Something caught her attention, and she took off towards the door.  She loved to sit and look out the windows, so I thought nothing of it.

She started beating on the glass and talking.   Then, I started hearing a weird noise, almost like a dull knocking sound.   When I turned around, there was a snake on the outside of the door swaying like a cobra.  The knocking sound was it striking the glass trying to bite my baby.

I freaked out and called 911.  They didn't appreciate my alarm.   Someone finally came out from Animal Control to capture the six foot chicken snake.  

Have I mentioned I hate snakes?

When I was in high school, I lived out in the country. I had a boyfriend who was in law enforcement and who hated snakes even more than me.  One night he had just arrived to pick me up on a date.  As he and I walked on the stepping stones to get to the car, there was a little garden snake lying between the stones.   He ran to the car to get his .45 so he could shoot it in the middle of my yard.  Just a little bit of overkill, for sure, but I thought it was funny at the time.

Now, I totally get where he was coming from.

I was driving home from work one day in my Jeep.   As my mind was going over the day, I felt something brush against my foot. I figured it was my pants leg and kinda twitched my ankle to get my pants to fall differently.

I felt the brush again, more insistent this time.   And then it moved up my leg.   When I looked down, I almost wrecked the car.   There was a snake hanging from my dash, its head on my leg.

I may have blacked out momentarily.

I do know I kicked the tar out of the snake and raced like an idiot the final five minutes home, my eyes on the floorboard the entire time.   It's amazing I didn't run into a tree.

When I got home, frantic, frenetic, and completely freaked out, my husband was all calm, cool, and collected as he interrogated me.  "What did its eyes look like?   Where the pupils round or slits?"

"I'm sorry I was too busy trying not to die to look at its eyes."

"Was its nose rounded or pointed?"

"See my previous answer."

"Was its head shaped like a diamond?"

"I don't know.   It was shaped like a snake that was on my foot in the middle of my freakin' car."

"What kind was it?"

"I don't know.   I didn't interview it.  I kicked it and it went into the dash."

"Was it poisonous?"

"I.  Don't. Know. It was a snake in my car that shouldn't have been there.  AND IT'S STILL THERE.  FIX THAT!!!!"

So, off my hubby went to check the car.  He looked under the dash and banged on it a couple of times, and that was his inspection.

"I don't see it," he said.

Really?  Banging on the dash didn't make him poke his head out??? Can't imagine why not!

And that was that.

It's been about eight months since that day.   I still look down from time to time just to double check and make sure the snake isn't peaking up at me.  I've not seen it again, but it freaks me out to think that it's still in there. Every time my pants brush my bare ankle in that car, I jump.  Whenever I turn the heater on the floor, I keep my eyes peeled in case it gets too hot for the snake and he comes out of hiding.

My hope and prayer is that once I parked the car, the snake decided that the car was not a safe place for it to be and it promptly crawled out and went to find new place to live.  I'm sure that's what happened...

Right??   Don't  you agree?

In the meantime.... anyone want to buy a Jeep? I've got one for sale.....

Mortified (a short post)

I absolutely love it when you talk to someone, and they look down. Later, in the car, you realize your zipper is down and your red and white striped undies are on prominent display. Then you realize the last time you have gone to the bathroom was two hours ago. In the meantime, you've spoken to your boss for 15 minutes, run to the jewelry store and spoken to several people there, been to the grocery store where you see a woman you know who you are totally envious of because she always looks so put together and perfect, meandered through the grocery store shopping, and gotten stopped in the parking lot by some friends to stop and chat.

These are the days I love my life.

And I'm thankful at least I had on underwear.

Playing Possum

My parents moved us to the country at the end of first grade.  They had visions of having a ranch, owning Land with capital L.  They wanted to plant gardens, raise cattle, can jellies and jams, and smell the clean air.   They wanted their children to commune with nature, to ride horses, muck out stalls, gather eggs, and eat fresh from the garden. We ended up with one half "Blazing Saddles," one half "Green Acres,"  no parts "Bonanza."

One icy winter day when I was I was in second or third grade, my dad found a momma possum and her litter in the barn while he was moving hay bales.  She was not happy and tried to attack him.  He defended.  She attacked.  Dad deflected and grabbed her by the tail.  Once he had the possum by the tail, the only thing he could think to do was to show her to his family.  Brave hunter and all that.

I don't know what possessed him to decide that it would be good for all of us kids to see one up close and personally, but here he came into the house with it.

INTO. OUR. HOUSE.

Picture if you will the sound of three little girls under the age of eight and one momma screaming when the triumphant hunter brings a hissing possum into the house.   The sound was deafening.    Dad was holding her  by the tail, and that possum was furious about it.   She kept hissing and showing her teeth.  She'd curl up and try to attack him and he would push her back down.  The girls would scream. She'd hiss again and show those sharp needles she called teeth, and then she would curl back up and try to bite him. Dad would slap her down again. We would all scream.  She'd wiggle and try to get away and when that didn't work, she would go back to hissing again.

I was petrified.  It looked like the meanest, biggest rat with the sharpest teeth I had ever seen.  I resolved then and there that a possum would never be my favorite animal.    After several minutes, dad decided the show was over and took her back outside to her babies.   Thankful doesn't begin to describe how we felt.

I somehow made it through about another 15 years without seeing another one.  Not long enough.

All my life, I've heard the phrase "playing possum."   I know what that means. To fake death or sleep. Apparently, though, I'm a little slow.  I just can't seem to remember it when I see when a possum "dead."

The first time it happened I almost lost a finger.

I was on my way to college one early morning.   My family had given up on the country life by then and had moved to a huge, old house on a corner in the middle of the city.

As I walked out to the car I noticed a huge lump in the middle in the road.   I idly wondered if the neighbor's cat had gotten killed.   I decided to drive over, investigate, and then let dad know so he could clean up the mess.

I pulled up beside the grey mass, put the car in neutral, and opened my door.   There lay a poor dead possum.   My mind went back to the day my dad brought one in the house.   I was so glad this one was dead.  I'd have to tell dad, so he could take care of it before someone hit it again.  I glanced down to put my car into first gear and reached out to close the car door without looking.

Then I heard the hiss.

My eyes darted back and there the possum was, not dead at all, but grinning at me with his needle-teeth, an evil glint in its beady little eyes.  It wanted to eat me.

I slammed the car door, put it in drive, and burnt rubber in my haste to get out of there.

Possum 1.  Kristi 0.

Flash forward another ten or twelve years.  I married.  Had a child.  Owned my own home in the city.   I even had my own dog  stray who would later turn into my own personal Cujo.

One night that dog, Bear, went nuts.   I went out to the backyard to investigate.   Bear was near the faucet at the back of the house.  His hackles were up, and he was foaming at the mouth in his distress.   When I got nearer to the dog, I noticed a poor dead possum lying up against the house, right underneath the water faucet.  Apparently, our big, bad dog had killed him in mid-drink.

I drug the dog into the house to get him away from the dead creature and told my husband he needed to dispose of the body.

See a pattern yet?

My hubby was just a *little* reticent to go out and deal with it right away.  His show was on.   After much nagging sweet talk, he finally disengaged himself from the couch and moved toward the back door.


All along the way, I told my husband where exactly it was and how good Bear had been to find it and kill it.

Imagine how surprised I was when we got to the faucet and there stood not a dead possum, oh no, but  one pissed off possum, hissing and showing his teeth.  A possum so enraged he decided to charge us.

Because I am excellent in emergencies, I screamed and ran into the house.

Protect was in his marriage vows.  Not mine.

My husband, an avid Crocodile Hunter fan, began to dance around with his arm thrown wide in his best Steve Irwin impersonation.    The possum was not impressed.   I think if he would have shouted, "She's a beaut" that would have sealed the deal.

He did do some fine spins and twirls though.

Hubby finally threw a five gallon bucked over the top of the possum and captured him.   He put a few heavy bricks on top to secure it.

Excellent.   Good job.  I clapped and cheered. He was so proud of himself.   I was too.....and then it hit me.

Now what?  

We couldn't shoot it.  We lived in town.   What do you do with a wild animal when you live in town?
I called animal control, but they don't answer in our town after 5.  Great.  It was 11 p.m.

So I did what people on episodes of Cops having been doing for years.  I called 911.

911:     What's your emergency?
Me:      Ummm.. yeah.. there's a possum in my backyard.  Come get it.
911:     What?
Me:      There's a possum in my backyard.    And he's mad.  Really mad. Crazy mad.  ( I was trying to make it sound severe so they'd come quickly.)  Come get him, quickly.  Please. (Just in case, they were sticklers for manners.) We even have him in a bucket for you.
911:      Ma'am, this is 911.
Me:       I know!  That's why I called!
911:      This is for emergencies.
Me:       I know! And I have a possum in my backyard. IN. A. BUCKET.

We went on like this for a little while, and she finally patched me through to the non-emergency number at the police department.    Non-emergency.  Whatever.   I had a stinkin' possum in a five gallon bucket, and Cujo in my living room.   If that's not an emergency, I don't know what is.

When I spoke to the police they were totally unsympathetic to my plight.  Their suggestion was to just let it go.  I told them what I thought of their suggestion.   They hung up.

We were obviously on our own.  

I told my hubby what had transpired. We decided we would take the brick off the plastic bucket and run like heck. I came up with a better plan.  It involved me, the inside of the house, and a closed screen door.  (I had to be able to see what happened!!)

Hubby lifted the brick off and the possum was off like a shot.  Hissing and spitting, the possum ran the whole back perimeter  of the house and then up the  back steps.  It ran into the screen, and I had a moment of panic, where I thought that the screen would give and I'd have a possum in my house again, running around free this time.

I screamed and slammed the wooden door on it.  The possum turned around, ran towards my hubby, and then went off into the darkness.

We haven't seen it again. I can't say I miss it.

Possums 2.  Kristi 0.

I'm on my guard, though.  Those possums won't catch me unaware again.

The next time you see one dead on the highway, just know, down deep, they're faking.   They want to draw you in.  They want you to feel sorry for them.

They want to gnaw your face off.  

They're not dead.  They're just playing possum.  And they're coming for you.

Imogene Fell Out of the Swing

When I was in second grade, I was a new student at a new school.  It was a very small rural school where everyone knew everyone and half the class was cousins. When kids are young, they make friends easily and quickly, and I was soon surrounded by a circle of friends who I still love to this day. (Hi Kristi H.!  Hey, Holly O.!)

One day in class our teacher, Mrs. Patterson, made us stop our work because she wanted to talk to us.  This was never good.   You see, Mrs. Patterson liked to scream and throw things....things like erasers, chalk, shoes, the metal chalk holder...just small things that couldn't do permanent damage but would hurt like the dickens if you were hit.   Unfortunately, Jesse sat in front of me and he loved to talk.  Often, he would see Mrs. Patterson winding up to chunk something at his head, and he would duck.   I, on the other hand, didn't always see what was going on because Jesse's big head was in the way.  Until it wasn't.   Then it was too late.  Many days I went home with a red mark on my forehead.

On this day, though, Mrs. Patterson didn't want to tell us how rotten we were.  Today, she wanted to tell us about a new student we would be getting tomorrow.   Imogene.

She told us that Imogene was special and would need a lot of our help.   She asked that we do our very best to make her welcome, that we play with her at recess, and make her feel like she truly belonged here.  My friends and I looked around at each other.  We didn't see what the big deal was.  We got new kids all the time, and they didn't get introduced the day before, but okay...whatever.. we'll be friends with her.  

The next day, Imogene showed up during cutting and pasting. Our desks had been arranged in loose circles all over the room.   There were about five of us in my little circle working together on our projects.  The teacher asked us all to put down our scissors and welcome our new student.

Imogene was a tall girl, taller than anyone else in my class.   I loved the many ponytails she had all over her head and her beautiful dark skin.   She smiled shyly and waved to us.   We smiled and waved back.

Mrs. Patterson sat Imogene down at our table.   She admonished us to remember the talk yesterday.   We all smiled at Imogene and tried our best to make her welcome.

Weeks before, several of my friends had come up with the ingenious idea of sticking a marker in and out of the paste to color it.  It made the most beautiful Easter egg colors.    We thought it was awesome, and every one of us had a different color of paste, thanks to one of my friend's Crayola markers.   As soon as we went back to work, Imogene stuck her hands in one of the containers of paste and began to eat.   She didn't talk much and often what she said wasn't clear, but she kept smiling and going back for more and more paste.

"Lemon," she said and then took the stick from the yellow paste and licked it clean.   "Gwape" and there went the purple.   "Cherry."  "Lime."   She got frustrated and grunted at us if we tried to work, so someone came up with the idea of feeding her the paste so that some of the others could work.  

Looking back on this as an adult, I can see where someone might see malice, but we were genuinely trying to help her.  We were not making fun.  We were trying to be welcoming in the only way our little, sheltered seven year old selves could. The teacher said be nice.  Imogene wanted paste.  If that's what she wanted, that's what we were going to give her.

So we did.

I don't know how long we fed it to her. It seemed like forever.  Some colors she liked better than others.   I do remember the moment Mrs. Patterson saw us, though.  The proverbial poop hit the fan.

"WHAT ARE YOU GIRLS DOING," she screamed at us.

One of us, daring to bring the wrath down upon her individual head, said, "We're trying to help her feel welcome."

Apparently, it was not the thing to say.   My friends and I got held in from recess that day.  A fate worse than death when you're in second grade.    Mrs. Patterson called in the principal and they talked to us about being nice and how disappointed in us they were.  My friends and I tried to explain, but their minds were made up.  We had been "ugly" to her on purpose.    We were threatened with a phone call to our parents if we didn't straighten up immediately.    We all knew if our moms got a phone call about something we did at school, we'd get it twice as bad at home, so we quickly agreed that we would all do better.

The next day, we resolved as a group to be even friendlier, even nicer, even more welcoming.   At recess, we decided to do the one thing that would show we were truly trying to help Imogene out.... the one thing that truly showed you had a friend.... the one thing everyone wanted....  to be pushed on the swings.

Oh yes, my friends.  The swings.

My elementary school had the most amazing swings ever.  If you could get someone to push you high enough and you pumped your legs hard enough, you could see over the elementary school all the way to the  junior high.   That was the true test of friendship in second grade.    It took a long time for someone to push you that hard.   They were sacrificing their own recess to help you out.

It was an amazing feeling to be that high.  Your back was parallel to the ground.   You had that crazy little drop in your stomach, the one where you're almost afraid, but not really. There was just this second or two of slack in the chains when you got to the apex of the upswing and you were even with the top bar. Then gravity would kick in and pull you back toward the ground with a jerk.  You'd pump your legs as hard as you could and pull back on the chains.  Your friend would push you on the way  back up and give you that little extra bit.

 Wow, those were the good times.

Now, we decided it wouldn't be fair if only one of us got to push Imogene.  We all wanted to show Mrs. Patterson and our principal that we had changed,  so we talked her in to sitting on the swing and then we all lined up to push her.

The first few pushes were good. Each one of us would push her, and then go to the back of the line.   Imogene went higher and higher into that beautiful blue sky.   She laughed and tried to clap.  We warned her not to let go.

We pushed her higher.

Somewhere along the way, she began to get scared and started making noises.

We all called up to her, "Hold on!"
"Just a little bit further."
"You can almost see it!"

And we kept pushing the swing.

 Because we wanted to be her friend.

Because we wanted to welcome her.

Because we could never have guessed what would happen next.

Imogene let go.

Yep, let go.

She had just reached the very tip-top.  If she would have just moved her head a little, she would have seen the junior high. Instead, with her back even with the ground, on that little jerk from the swing,  she gasped and  let go.   And fell probably 15 feet.


She landed hard.  We all screamed and ran to her body, sure we had killed her.

The teachers came running.  We gathered around her, and Imogene was making the most awful little noises.   This gaspy, raspy, trying-to-breathe-but-can't-get-air noise.  Her eyes were closed, and I can still see the little pieces of gravel in her hair.

The teachers were furious.  They separated us and sent us to the wall.   I started crying.  I was positive she was going to die and I was going to jail for murder.   How would I make it in prison when I couldn't even fix my own hair yet?

Suddenly, there was a commotion and Imogene sat up.   She kept saying something, and at first I couldn't make it out.

I was closest to the back door and as they brought her by me on the way to the nurse, I could hear her say, "Imogene fell out of the swing!"  and then she gasped, her hands raised to the sides of her face, fingers splayed.    Over and over she said this...."Imogene fell out of the swing...*gasp*   Imogene fell out of the swing....*gasp*"  Over and over she made the motions.  "Imogene fell out of the swing...*gasp* Imogene fell out of the swing.....*gasp*"

 As she passed  me, she smiled.

She knew we hadn't meant to hurt her.

The teachers on the other hand were under no such illusions.  They were sure we had masterminded the whole thing.  We each got sent to the principal's office and our parents were called.  

When I look back on it, I'm almost amazed by how pure our motives were.  We didn't mean to hurt her.  We weren't trying to make fun.  We wanted to show her friendship and acceptance.   We wanted to make her feel like she was one of us.  Our methods may have been misguided, but that's all anyone can truly hope for.. someone who wants to help us belong.

A Beautiful Day

Today’s blog post is not so humorous. If you want funny, you can read here or here or here.   Today’s blog post events make me cry with joy.  I want this blog to be a reflection of my life.   As the sign at the top says, “You can’t make this stuff up.”  Here is today’s dose of truth.

Like most of America we have some debt.   Unlike many Americans ours is not credit card; our is medical.  Thousands and thousands of dollars of medical debt. 

Happy. Happy. Joy. Joy.

Several years ago, my husband had a pretty severe car wreck  where he was rear-ended by a semi, then t-boned by an oncoming car.  It was not his fault, but the medical bills still had to be paid, while insurance settled everything.  Surgeries, MRIs, CAT scans, prescriptions,  procedures, and a never-ending round of doctor bills soon followed.  And continue to follow to every month.

 A year, a month, and a day after his wreck, my daughter and I were rear-ended by a drunk driver.   Again, medicals bills came out the wazoo and everyone wanted them paid RIGHT NOW.   Procedures, MRIs, and tons of doctor bills for me.   Yay, for modern medicine.  

We were just beginning to get our heads above water when more fun and games struck.  This summer I was hospitalized for an ovary that decided to explode, then bleed internally and infect my body.   After an emergency hospital visit, nine days in the hospital, and about 50 gazillion dollars spent, I was finally released.
  

For a while, I’ve been paying, $50 here, $20 there,  $100 if that was all the hospital would take, in a vain attempt to pay them all off.   Some of them have a balance of zero, now. Some of them will be paid off soon.  Some of them have been set up on payment plans that will end around 2015.

I kid you not.  2015.   My house will be paid off before some of these medical bills. 

 

I’m kinda hoping the whole Mayan thing is right.

Yesterday, after a long day at work, I called to make some payments and pay off two bills.  I recently got a check from insurance for an MRI I had after my wreck.   $413 bucks.  Do you know what I could do with money like that? New shoes.   New clothes for the kiddo.  New curtains.  Maybe a new outfit for me.  I decided, however, to be responsible and use it for what it was meant for.  To pay a stupid bill.  

Sometimes, I hate being an adult.

I called the place where I had gotten the MRI to make my final payment.   When the lady looked up my account, I only owed $86.  I asked her to double check, but she was sure.   I was stoked.    For those who are a little slow at math like I am (I just used a calculator to figure this up), that means I still had $327 left.  I might get those new curtains after all.  

Alas, I decided to be a grown up though, dangit, and pay another bill.  

Sometimes, I really, really hate being an adult.

I called the hospital where I had a procedure done on my neck during my recovery from the wreck.    I gave them my name and birthdate and then waited while they pulled up my account.  When she put me on hold, I thought to myself, “This can’t be good.”

She was gone forever.  Long enough for the piped in music to play almost all of  Billy Joel’s “Longest Time”  (OH THE IRONY) and the Carpenters’ “Close to You.”   Of course, I sang along. 

When she finally came back to the line, she said to me, “Miss, there’s something odd going on.  I’m not sure why you called.  You don’t owe anything on this account.”

Now, I appreciate a bargain as well as the next girl, but I’m going to pay my bills, so I told her, “Please, check again. I know I owe about five hundred bucks.”

She checked again. “Your balance is zero.”

“But that’s impossible!  I know I haven’t paid it off.”

That’s when she told me the most wonderous thing.   I had made a payment of $203, and then someone else called in and paid the whole thing off.  

$486.   Paid.  In full.  Not by me. 

I started to cry.  The lady on the other end of the phone told me, “God is good. Don’t question it.”

Being human though, I needed to know specifics.    Had it been forgiven by the hospital?  Did insurance cover more?   Or did someone actually call in and pay it?

According to the records, someone called in, gave them by birthdate and paid it. 

I couldn’t quit weeping.   The woman on the other end told me she was so glad she got to give me the news and that I had made her day.    I told her it was mutual.

To recap… I call on the MRI, and the balance has been reduced.   I was given a surplus.   Then, I decide to use that extra to pay another bill, and that bill has a balance of zero.  My cup runneth over.

Sometimes, I love being a faithful, responsible adult.

So many times, I get depressed about money  or our lack thereof, and I get down when I see amazing things happen to others.  My selfish, human side says, “Why not me, God?  When is my turn?” My spiritual side chafes at my human side, but I’m being honest here.   That’s how it is, sometimes.  Sometimes, I  am a whiny, selfish human.  

I’m sure I’m the only one.

I should have learned a long time ago, though, His timeline not mine.  His blessings are bountiful, and His care for me is more than I can ever imagine.   Now it’s my turn to pay it forward to someone else, because God is good, all the time. 

And all the time, God is good.