Health Care Costs

I live in the United States of America. It is a wonderful place. I have lived here all of my 56 years. It is also one of the most top heavy governments in the world. As a matter of fact, smack dab in the middle of this historical economic depression, it's government spends money with the reckless abandon of one who actually HAD money.

Now, this obama guy has brought government to the socialistic level of getting involved with our health care Insurance costs.

Has anyone noticed that we no longer seem to complain about health care costs? Its true. It does matter what the doctor charges for a visit or what the lab charges to examine our blood because we know we cannot afford that anyway. We complain about health care Insurance costs. The medical industry has gotten so bloated that it seems acceptable that no one could afford to PAY for the visit to the doctor. No one could afford to PAY for the gallbladder removal. It is just accepted that we can barely pay for the INSURANCE required to get the medical work done. I always liked using upper case. It helps me feel like I am yelling.

So I have a question and invite you to post your thoughtful or even petty responses. Why does this medical arena have such a stronghold? We don't have insurance to cover unexpected maintenance of our homes. We don't have insurance to cover unexpected or routine maintenance of our automobiles. By the way, I pay over $500 per month just for the INSURANCE to get medical treatment.

County Property Taxes

Like you, we have recently started receiving property tax statements. As I recall, our real estate tax structure is based on an Ad Valorem basis. I think it is a Latin term meaning 'according to value'. Churches and other nonprofit facilities are not taxed on this basis, but for the most part, all other facilities are. Property worth more is taxed more and so on. This is a credible and fair approach.



Some of you may have noticed that recently our country's economy has not only stopped growing but has begun to turn inward. Durable goods costs and values have gone down. Real Estate values have gone down and many blue chip and other direct stocks have gone down. I have even heard of a foreclosure or two. Most of the private industry appears to be responsibly reacting to this economy by downsizing, wage freezing, cancelling bonuses and other thoughtful ways to deal with this. They want their companies to survive, I suppose. I understand that the, now flat but once booming, housing industry created many roads, utilities and emergency services areas that must now be monitored and maintained even though they are vacant. But, those houses and other buildings whether sold or not still belong to someone who is responsible for paying their Ad Valorem tax. That means the Counties are getting the same usual Ad Valorem tax on them as in the boom days.



Taxes are a good thing and I believe in the system, but the county property tax statements, we received, show an increase in value and get this, an increase in the amount of taxes due. I have questions that are part rhetoric and part genuine:



Why is it that property taxes increase almost without fail? Why is last year's revenue now deficient and additional revenue is needed? What has increased? Shouldn't the county and all other governmental bodies be following this economy, too?

A true (but another poop story) incident

My wife and I own a small business. I spend significant time here alone. Well, yesterday the UPS man showed up at the door with a bright and friendly smile. They all seem to do that. He made his first delivery (to be explained later) and walked out the door with a smile on his face. He was just stepping into his brown truck when I saw him pause. He turned back to our building and approached. When he stepped inside, he asked if he could use our bathroom. With a light sheen on his face, he wasted no time walking to the room. It turns out he had just experienced a Bright-Boy-Alert. For those of you who don’t know what this is, let me explain. A Bright-Boy-Alert is an internal notice that is issued by the colon. The colon is our body's chief commander and answers to no one. It lets the brain know that within the next 20-25 seconds, the body will be pooping. All else is optional. The use of a toilet is an option. Being alone…optional. Having the opportunity to drop trou…optional. The fact remains that pooping will occur in that time frame. The owner of said colon must do everything it can within that time frame to accommodate this almighty, highest of all courts, command. Because it will happen.
So, now the UPS guy is in the bathroom making his second and third deliveries. He was in that room for quite awhile. I heard noises like he was doing chin-ups or something. That corner of the office started to feel warm like it was radioactive and have some kind of glow to it. After 10 minutes or so, he stepped out and said to me: ”I hate to be tacky, but do you happen to have a plunger?”
I looked into his eyes and could tell he was serious. I could tell the exhaust fan was hard at work and the neighbors, who were downwind and out working in their yard, stood and were looking in our direction. You see, I do have a plunger, but plungers are a one-time tool. Once they touch poop in a toilet, you carry them outside and throw them over the nearest fence. Let someone else deal with it. That is a state law. I didn’t want my unused plunger to be tossed, so I asked him if he could wait a few minutes for hydration to set in. During that time, we visisted. I asked him what he had for lunch and if he had named our new stubborn friend. After a few minutes, he went and attempted another flush…..Not so much…..The now brown mush quickly established a new high water mark in the bowl. Now this guy had to leave! He drove away and I was left to deal with this. I decided it was time to use the plunger, so I took off its tags and pushed. I pushed and pushed. Somewhere on the Willamette, a small boat rocked from that plunger of mine. Finally, with a whoosh, the mush left. While it traveled its way to downtown, I was all clear. After the mandatory 12 flushes, I pulled the plunger out and in a controlled panic, walked it outside, and of course, tossed it over the nearest fence. All is now well.

A nightmarish story of a shower

I had the strangest dream the other night. I had died and had come back to Earth as a bar of soap. I was a new bar. Irish Spring, I suppose. I was in a clean dark dry box. Suddenly, after weeks on a shelf, I heard running shower water and felt movement....Could it be that my time had come to be useful? The box was being opened and as I eagerly peered through the very small cracked opening in the box, I was sure I saw THE Demi Moore! I remember thinking to myself “this is fantastic”. All the trials and wrongs of my previous life were suddenly no longer relevant. I was about to be soaked in water and rubbed all over the naked body of Demi! Demi Moore and me….Alone in the shower. How could I have been so lucky? This second life was the best thing ever. I had won a lottery and never again would I complain about anything. Nothing could be better.

Then without warning, my cardboard covering was fully removed and instead of seeing the beautiful and quite naked, Ms. Moore, there stood Earnest Borgnine! Worse yet, he was just as naked. In spite of my desperate cling to my container, I was pulled from the box and was instantly welded to no less than 30 heavy gauge hairs. They were now embedded across my body and I was never to be free of them. Those hairs were old enough to have been in the movie “Poseidon adventure”. Earnest was rubbing me along his skin in places I cannot mention, but suffice it to say it stunk! Down I went…Up I went. Over boils. In I went and out I went. Over and over.

It was an awful dream and I was grateful to have awakened. I have been using liquid soap, since.

Are we ready for Socialism?

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could it be any simpler than that? Sorry, but there usually is good reason as to why the rich get richer.

Remembering Dad

He died in early 1992. One of the strong memories I have of him was how much he smoked cigarettes. He smoked 3 packs of Pall Mall straights per diem for many decades. It always amazed me at how much the human body can tolerate. From the time he awoke until he went to sleep at night, he usually had a cigarette going. Although right handed, he smoked with the left.

His wristwatch was awarded to him for the years of sevice he gave at the local metal foundary. He liked that watch and wore it daily. The same employer gave him a little copper ashtray. His left hand, that ashtray and that watch spent countless hours near each other engulfed in his cigarette smoke. I grew up smelling that smoke and I think I could identify it from other people's cigarette smoke. After he died, I placed the watch and ashtray in lockable plastic. I would periodically open that container and take a big whiff. It smelled so much like my dad. For years, I was able to engage with that. Now, the smell has all gone. I still have the items, the watch stopped running long ago and the copper ashtray is corroded. No longer can I open that box and smell my Dad. But I can resort to the internal electrons of my memory to recall him. I remember that smell. I can tickle that memory of that smell and his voice. Without doubt, he was the most quick-witted, joke making, hard laughing person I knew. If I could only talk to him just once more. I miss him still.

Bathroom Humor

Hopefully you will find it funny……


All in all, it hadn't been a good day. Bad traffic, slow sales, a malfunctioning computer, incompetent customers and a sore back all helped to make me a seething cauldron of steaming rage.
But more importantly for this story, it had been over forty-eight hours since I'd last taken a ‘George Bush’. I'd tried to jumpstart the process, beginning my day with a bowl of bowel-cleansing fiber cereal, following it with six or seven huge cups of coffee and adding a bean-laden lunch from the nearby Taco Bell. The day finally finished, and as I was returning home from work, my insides let me know with subtle but structural rumbles that a George Bush was indeed coming and very big things were in my near future. I had no idea that such small amounts of escaping air could verify this imminent event with such authority. Alas, I had to stop at the Fred Meyer store to pick up an item and as I was walking through the store on my way back to the car, I noticed a large sale sign proclaiming, "Everything Must Go!" This was prophetic. It was as if the sign was intended for my colon. By now my colon was approximately 8 inches in diameter and certainly no less than seven feet long. It responded to the sign with a sudden violent cramp and a wet, squeaky fart. It had just verified that everything was indeed about to go. I hurried to the store bathroom by taking hundreds of cautious 12 inch steps. The restroom was about ¼ mile down the aisle. Upon entering, I surveyed the five stalls, which I have numbered 1 through 5 for your understanding:

1.Occupied and judging by the sounds, this guy was lifting a car up.

2.Clean, but Bathroom Protocol forbids its use, as it's next to the occupied one. I could see the stall paint was reacting to the guy lifting the car.

3.Poo on seat. That is an automatic NO. There is no amount of cleaning, sanding, painting or covering that will ever make this seat useable again. It must be replaced.

4.Poo and toilet paper in bowl, unidentifiable liquid splattered on seat. See number 2 above.

5.No toilet paper, no stall door, unidentifiable sticky object near base of toilet. I could live with no paper or door but I think I saw corn in that object.

Clearly, it had to be Stall #2. I trudged back, entered, dropped trou and sat down. I'm normally a fairly Shameful Georger and I wasn't happy about being next to the occupied stall, but Big Things were afoot and my colon was clearly in charge. Well, I placed my feet in the elevated stirrups, grabbed both panic bars and inserted the bite block!!

I was just getting ready to bear down when all of a sudden the sweet sounds of The Beatles came from next door, followed by a fumbling, and then the sound of a voice answering the ringing phone. As usual for a cell phone conversation, my new neighbor’s voice was exactly 8 dB louder than it needed to be. Out of Shameful habit, my sphincter slammed shut. The inane conversation went on and on. Mr. Shitter was blathering to Mrs. Shitter about the shitty day he had. I sat there, cramping and miserable, waiting for him to finish. As the loud conversation dragged on, I became angrier and angrier, thinking that I, too, had a crappy day, but I was too polite to yak about in public. My bowels let me know in no uncertain terms that if I didn't get to Georging soon, my day would be getting even crappier.


Finally my anger reached a point that overcame Shamefulness. I no longer cared. I squeezed both grab bars and pushed with all my might. I was rewarded with a fart of such colossal magnitude, I was forced to grab the toilet paper core and poke my colon back in. I now know it is time to get this party started. The noise sounded like someone dropping a 5 gallon bucket of uncured Jell-O into swimming pool. The sound gradually transitioned into a heavily modulated low-RPM tone, not unlike someone firing up a Harley with a damaged crankshaft. I managed to hit resonance frequency of the stall, and it shook gently. It was beautiful.

Once my ass cheeks stopped flapping, three things became apparent: (1) The next-door conversation had ceased; (2) my colon's continued seizing indicated that there was more to come; and (3) the bathroom was now beset by a horrible, eldritch stench. The exhaust fans slowed and I think the fire/safety alarm may have activated.

It was as if a gateway to Hell had been opened. The foul miasma quickly made its way under the stall and began choking my poop-mate. This initial "herald" fart had ended his conversation in mid-sentence.

"Oh my God," I heard him utter, following it with the suppressed sounds of choking, and then, "No, baby, that wasn't me (cough, gag), you could hear that (gag)??"

Next door I could hear fumbling with the paper dispenser as he desperately tried to finish his task. Tiny pieces of conversation made themselves heard over my anal symphony: "Gotta go... horrible... throw up... in my mouth.... tell the kids... love them... oh God..." followed by more sounds of suppressed gagging and retching.

-

It is evidently difficult to hold one's phone and wipe one's bum at the same time. Just as my high-pressure abuse of the toilet was winding down, I heard a plop and splash from next door, followed by a string of swear words and gags. My poop-mate had dropped his phone into the toilet.

After a considerable amount of paperwork, I got up and surveyed the damage. I felt bad for the janitor who'd be forced to deal with this. I wanted to get him a sympathy card or leave him a tip. I knew that flushing was not an option. No toilet in the world could handle that unholy mess. Flushing would only lead to a floor flooded with filth.

As I left, I glanced to the next-door stall. Nothing remained in the bowl. Had he flushed his phone, or had he plucked it out and left the bathroom with nasty unwashed hands? The world will never know.

I exited the bathroom, momentarily proud and Shameless, looking around for a face glaring at me. But I saw no one. I suspect that somehow my supernatural elimination has managed to transfer my Shamefulness to my anonymous poop-mate. I think it'll be a long time before he can bring himself to poop in public -- and I doubt he'll ever again answer his cell phone in the George Bush room. And this, my friends, is why you should never talk on your phone in the bathroom.