Queer Chronicles entry ©2004

Queer Chronicles by Kenneth Allen, ©2004

September 23, 2004

Insurance and the Impending Rapture

I work to have insurance. Work causes me some sort of stress-related illness that requires pills. I hate pills. Still, I must call my non-networked doctor who refuses to take insurance claims directly because they’re rude, troublesome, and take months to pay. I must pay out-of-pocket and the insurance company will reimburse me. And boy was the good doc right about the “taking months” thing.

Today, I go to the pharmacy to pick up my pills. Foolishly, I expect my five-dollar co-pay to have some clout. It doesn’t. The insurance company won’t pay for it. The doctor must call them. They refuse and actually tell the pharmacist not to fill the bottle! So, these people who lose forms, can’t figure out a decent accounting system, and make me give them my special number more than three times for each phone call … these brilliant folk can decide from their cubicle what it took my doctor six weeks to figure out. They really are amazing. Of course, I had to be able to eat and I have to be able to sleep tonight. So, I paid for the pills … out-of-pocket. One-hundred fifty-nine dollars. The insurance company received over four-hundred from my powers-that-be this month alone to cover such things.

I must take the pill, though. I must rest tonight on a full stomach so I can get up early and get to work. I need insurance.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the free world, a big metal cross fell over and killed an old lady in Italy. Jimmy Swaggart, twice arrested with a prostitute, is concerned a gay man would actually look at him romantically. And Bush’s daddy reminded us all today what a good Christian his son is and that he has a higher power than his daddy. Dick Cheney was offended to learn it wasn’t him.

Lord, please don’t leave me out of The Rapture. I know it’s a-comin’ soon.