An Unusually Tall Ghost

It's almost November already? I really have no idea how that happened. I've been so...filled with a sense of malaise this month. Work was always, ahem, what it was, but this month it's been so very hard just to make it all the way through the day. Nights aren't much better. I started trying to exercise again this week, but otherwise I've been mostly watching TV.

It doesn't help that it's HALLOWEEN month, which means that all the really awesome scary movies are on TV. I love it. I can't get enough. I watched Hellraiser for the first time. It was not a good movie. So of course I watched Hellraiser 2. It was even worse. So of course I watched yet another one...don't remember the title, but based on the plot it was something like Hellraiser: Lost in Space! That one I actually had to seek out specially on On Demand.

I think there's something really really wrong with me.

A local columnist had an article in the paper recently about teen trick-or-treaters. That hit close to home for me. 'Cuz I wish I were a teen trick-or-treater. Of course, I WAS a teen trick-or-treater, as long as I could manage it. I believe I was 15 the last time I went. I would create elaborate costumes (oh, fine, elaborate costume, since I was nuts about Anne Rice and so really all I ever wanted to be was an 18th century vampire) and run around the neighborhood with my similarly stunted friends for hours until all the porch lights were turned off.

I don't get the hostility to my latter-day counterparts. Let the poor sad souls have their fun! All too soon they will be forced to grow up and be shackled to a desk until they're actually HAPPY when they develop serious illnesses and have no choice but to seek solace and joy in the installation of slate flooring. I know, I know, it's not too cute when they don't even bother to dress up...but come on! That sweet surly span of late childhood is all too fleeting. Let us heap upon them tiny treats, lest they too soon awaken to the cold harsh reality of a world in which candy ain't free and your best costume is your courtroom attire.

Meanwhile...I have TOTALLY been thinking about going trick-or-treating. Yes, now. It could go down like this: a nice mask, maybe a ghostly sheet, and the world need never know my shameful shameful secret. I tried to convince my dad to come with me to provide parental supervision so as to complete the disguise, but for some reason he refused.

Nurse Ratched

My niece has become deeply, intensely concerned about everyone's wellbeing. She is forever asking us if we're okay – although it comes out more like, "You 'kay?" A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of a family dinner, she insisted on being taken out of her high chair. She then demanded that we pass her from one person to another, all the way around the table. She'd ask each person, "You 'kay?" and when they said, "Yes," she'd smile, pat them on the head three times, and give them a big hug, and then point to the next person she wanted to be handed to.

When she got to me, I told her, "No." 'Cuz I didn't feel 'kay, and because I'm evil to tiny children. She frowned at me severely, and then began repeating over and over, "You 'kay? You 'kay? You 'kay?" It became less like a question and more like a command. I finally told her I was, indeed, 'kay, and then I got my pat on the head.

:-O ^ 2

It seems I was premature in reporting the cost of my, all things considered, fairly insignificant ailment. The bills have continued to mount. Today, the total is, in fact, double the previously reported amount. As in, "Gee, should I have an appendectomy, or should I buy a Bentley?"

Gosh. I mean, the being alive is nice and all, but I think I'm pretty strong and could have survived regardless. And my car keeps breaking down....

I totally promise no more appendix posts. After all, I have lots going on besides that. Like...um...today I went to a store completely dedicated to Halloween paraphernalia. I didn't buy a thing. It was way over the top. I thought I liked over the top, but somehow, the thought of placing a realistic replica of a disemboweled human on my front lawn doesn't quite appeal to me. Instead I bought a fake pumpkin from Wal-Mart. It cost $1. I think that's awesome.

Oh, Bloody 'Ell

Now they tell me.

:-O

So, I decided to look up my health insurer's website to see if they've received the bill for my surgery and hospital stay yet.

They have.

It cost $31,000.

I had a panicked and terrified moment before I called my dad and he calmed me down. Right now it says "processing claim," so it's not clear how much I'll have to pay, but he assured me that I only have to pay my deductible amount. (I didn't know about these things, having, y'know, not been sick before.)

'Cuz otherwise? Geeeeez. It'd be a lot cheaper to plan a funeral.