Conversation with mother at dinner last evening:
Mom: "Are you an AARP member?"
Me: "No."
Mom: "Good. Don't join."
Me: "Why?"
Mom: "They've raised their insurance rates. For their employees. For everyone. Something like 9 per-cent. Because of the health care law. Which they pushed for."
Me: "Well, AARP isn't the insurance company - the insurer they contract with is raising its rates - like many other insurance companies are - because they can. The new law will restrict them from arbitrarily increasing rates in the future, so they're grabbing money while they can."
Mom; "Oh. I thought they were the insurance company. Well, my rates are going up. I think they are. I'll have to look at my papers. (pause) I'm going to drop everything. If I get sick I'll just shoot myself."
Me: (Sighing loudly) "Do you want more wine?"
The rest of the meal progressed rather uneventfully; mother reading grocery store fliers while I perused the IKEA catalog. Then my mother asked me if IKEA was Chinese or Japanese.
"Um, they're Swedish."
"Oh. Well, everyone in the catalog looked Oriental."
Glancing down at the blonde family gathered round the lovely kitchen scene in the catalog, I remained silent. I needed all my strength to keep from banging my head against the table....
Posts
Could you at least drink heavily or did you have to drive home?
ReplyDeleteTrish, I WAS home, and I did have another glass of wine ;-)
ReplyDeleteWe don't have AARP here, but we do have some mighty fine wine.
ReplyDeleteNo, Doug, I didn't expect you would have AARP. CARP, maybe...
ReplyDeleteWhere there's people my age, there's lots of CARPing...
ReplyDeleteI miss the legs.
ReplyDeleteHar har har at CARP.
ReplyDeleteWait...what the? IKEA is SWEDISH??????? Who'd thunk.
We enlisted in AARP because the discount on our cell phones is triple the yearly fee when amortized over the year. All the rest of the mail I get from them I use for toilet paper because they don't have an AARP discount for that YET.
ReplyDeleteIs there an AARP discount for IKEA? If so I may want to by some furniture for my cardboard box.
Punch, whose?
ReplyDeleteJaded...have you been drinking with my Mom?
WalkingMan - no AARP discount but IKEA's packaging can no doubt be repurposed for some sturdy furnishings.
I think Prudential is AARP's insurance provider. My father had Long Term Care insurance with them, with an assisted living rider, but he had dementia and forgot. So we paid for three years of assisted living out of pocket. When he died, the social worker at his facility suggested I look into his policy for a rider. I called Prudential and they agreed he had a rider to cover his assisted living facility, but denied coverage because we were applying after the fact. One year of non-stop badgering later, we got a check for 90% of the bills for the three years.
ReplyDeleteInsurance, but only if you're mad enough.