Holding Patterns

Sometimes you have to fly in big circles waiting for terrible things to pass.  If you don’t wait… if you rush in unprepared… then you go down in flames.

The problem started with two molars whose expensive crowns both broke during the pandemic.  I went to a Vietnamese pirate dentist who extracted both ruined and infected molars. tortured me heavily during the three-week procedure and extracted $4000 out of my pocket because I had no dental insurance.   That was followed by a trip to the ER for a kidney-stone crisis, a matter of $65 out of pocket, thanks to the $185 a month I pay for Medicare.   And two months later, another trip to the ER for a deadly low heart rate resulted in a week in the hospital, a surgical implantation of a pacemaker, and finally another trip to the ER  after getting out of the hospital due to dehydration. The out-of-pocket cost of the hospital will be only $500, thanks to Medicare.  Of course, President Pumpkinhead may kill Medicare, too, before I actually get the bill.  It is expensive in this country to become poor.  And if you are poor, you have no other option.  At least, if I can manage three more bankruptcies by the time I’m 70, I will be qualified to run for president.

Life is definitely a lot like Moose Bowling.  It is a simple game.  In order to win, you only have to knock down all ten pins in one throw.  The hard part is that you have to throw a moose to knock the pins down.  Did you know that the average weight of an adult moose is 1800 pounds, or 820 kilograms?  That’s a lot of moose meat to fling with my arthritic 68-year-old moose-throwing muscles.  My flabber is totally gasted by that.

So, as I swiftly rise from prosperity to poverty, the ultimate fate of most old school teachers, it is probably a good thing that I have decided to become a nudist.  At least I will save money on buying clothes.