Reality or Just Cheap?

Years ago, we changed the channel rather than watch the contest/reality shows that were showing up on our television: Survivor and American Idol are the two that come to mind. I can remember being hunched over my desk at work, trying my hardest not to roll my eyes as co-workers jabbered about ‘Tony from Texas and his wonderful voice’ or ‘Can you believe how Anna betrayed her own team?’ While I thought it wonderful that some good voices got a chance to be discovered, I don’t enjoy listening to ‘judges’ being cruel to the contestants. Nor do I enjoy watching greedy people doing whatever they think will get them the prize.

Those shows were followed by others, so many I can’t hope to name them all. Over the years, it seems some television stations have gone ‘all reality, all the time’. We frequently find ourselves watching videos in the evenings, rather than actual television.

We’ve decided that ‘reality’ shows must be cheaper to produce than the shows that have a plot. Well, it stands to reason, right? They don’t have to pay a writer to come up with a script, they don’t need actors (although they may have a few judges to pay.) Heck, they may not even need a director, just some camera people to follow the contestants around, and someone to edit the vast amount of video to fit the time slot.

Sometimes I do watch a few of these later generation shows, if the premise is interesting and the judges critique rather than demean. But the few I might be willing to watch will never be as interesting to me as a good plot with interesting characters.

It Doesn't Work?

Everybody says that negative campaigns don’t work. And yet, it seems like every campaign eventually devolves to a series of name-calling and mud-slinging.

Everybody I know hopes that their guy won’t engage in such stupidity … but they do. Instead of actually explaining HOW they will do whatever they’ve promised to do, or exactly WHAT they think needs to change, and how it will effect Average Joe, they tell you what their opponent has done that they think is wrong. And if they can’t find enough of those types of things to tell you about, they will twist the facts or even make them up.

If negative campaigns don’t work, why do they do it? I suspect because negative ads DO work. If candidate A can throw enough dirt onto candidate B, then A will look better, especially since most voters have no idea what is true and what is not. I like that some of the news programs have started to ‘fact check’ things the presidential candidates say, but what about the more local candidates?

Even when the fact checkers say, “This statement by candidate A is absolutely wrong,” candidate A and his campaign continue to repeat it, over and over again, as if saying it a few hundred times will make it true. It doesn’t. But by repeating it that many times, they can drill it into people’s minds that it is true.

I hate negative campaigns. They don’t give me any INFORMATION to allow me to make an intelligent decision. But that’s one more reason why the candidates engage in them. They aren’t looking to inform you; they want to convince you. I suspect the candidates resort to mud-slinging because they really don’t have any idea how they are going to solve the problems of the day. So they have to convince the voters that their opponent is even worse.

Double Edged Sword

I’m having mixed feelings about this ‘being retired’ part of life.

After more than 40 years of working with other people, for other people, having them determine when I need to arrive at work, when I can leave, and what I have to be doing while I’m at work, I really love the freedom of determining my own schedule and working out my own time table. I no longer have to be at 5 to be at work by 7; now I get up between 7 and 8, and usually don’t have any place I need to be. I have some control over who I see, when I see them and what I do with them.

On the other hand, now that I have no one else to decide what I will do each day, I have to do that myself. After all, I’m retired, not dead. But I won’t last long if I don’t stay active and engaged, both physically and mentally.

So I decided to start my own business. I really didn’t have any money to spare to set it up, just a few dollars here and there, so it was going to involve a lot of hard work. And it does. Every morning when I get up, I have to decide what parts of my never-ending list of things to do I will tackle that day. And there are times when I wish I had somebody who would tell me which items have a higher priority, which items are worth my time and which are not.

So I plug along, learning new skills, and trying to make the best use of my time.

Still, when the mood hits me, I take the afternoon off and go see a movie. I think that might be the best part about being retired.

Working Around the Insurance Companies

A friend is on vacation this week, and she’s having fun, despite having to shave some of her medications every 2 or 3 days. Here’s the deal;

She has medical insurance through her former employer, the same medical insurance she had while she was working, but since she’s retired, the actual insurance company has changed. Apparently, this new company wants to ‘save’ every penny it can. No matter what the cost to the people who rely on them for help with medical bills.

My friend was diagnosed many, many years ago with chronic depression. After taking antidepressants and getting counseling for several years, she felt she had it under control and her doctor helped her wean herself from the antidepressants. She did well for over a decade.

Almost a year and a half ago, she realized the depression had snuck back into her life, and she asked her doctor to prescribe some antidepressants. There were some new ones available that he thought might be a good fit, the insurance company (at that time, the old one) had no problems approving them.

The insurance company changed, and the friend felt that particular antidepressant wasn’t working well, so her doctor changed her prescription. The insurance company threw up all sorts of road-blocks; ‘This drug is a level 2, and should not be prescribed without a clear indication this strong a drug is needed’, and who knew what else. Happily, her doctor and pharmacist argued with the insurance company on her behalf, and eventually, she got her new antidepressants.

All seemed to be going okay, although she still felt more depressed than not after several months. When she mentioned that to her doctor, he agreed to up her dose. She had just refilled her prescription based on the old dosage, and simply increased the number of pills she took each day from 2 to 3. Realizing her insurance company would need to ‘approve’ this higher dosage, she called her doctor’s office a FULL WEEK before she needed more pills so that the change could be made, and (she hoped), she would be able to refill the higher dosage without any problem.

She had to go for 3 days without any antidepressants before the insurance company finally approved the change in dosage. Once she started taking her pills again, it was a full week before she felt she could function.

When she realized she would be on vacation when it was time to refill her prescription, she cringed at the idea of fighting with the insurance company over an early refill. She would get home only 2 days AFTER she ran out of pills, but she didn’t want to go completely without for 2 days, and be unable to function for 4 or 5 days after that. So she’s been carefully skimming her dosage down to 2 pills every 3rd or 4th day, and taking the full dose of 3 pills the remaining days. On those days when she only takes 2 pills, she returns to her room a little earlier, in case some fogginess overtakes her as her drug level dips, and the following day, she may start her activities a little later, to give that drug level a chance to start raising.

She thinks she’s exercising some control, but the fact is, the insurance company has won. They have become the de facto death panels.

Tangled Web

A friend of mine was recently wondering how she could make a few extra bucks. A lot of people are, these days.

My friend is usually pretty savvy about all these ‘work at home’ schemes you see advertised on the internet. She’s looked into a lot of them over the years, and she’s learned to ignore all the hype. But this one didn’t have all that hype, it all sounded very above-board and fairly believable.

She signed up. She got a $5.00 bonus for doing so, and was promised she would be paid – yes, actually paid – for every survey she completed.

The next day, she sat down, intending to spend an hour filling out surveys and see how it went. After 2 ½ hours, she finally had enough and signed out of that website. She had made 50 cents, and isn’t sure how she had done that. When she calmed down, we talked about her latest experience.

“It had me fooled at first few,” she admitted. “After a while, I realized they were all yes-no questions; Do you suffer from back pain? Do you have allergies? That sort of thing. Then I realized that every time I answered ‘yes’ to anything, I was shunted to another ‘survey’. And that survey was set up exactly like the first, even asking the same questions. So if I answered ‘yes’ to a question in the 2^nd ‘survey’, I was shunted to another survey.”

“Sounds like it would be impossible to make any progress,” I suggested.

“Right. So I stopped worrying about giving ‘honest’ answers, and just answered ‘no’ to everything. Then I got to the end of one of those ‘layered’ surveys, and I was asked to choose 2 of the following wonderful offers.”

“Uh oh.”

“You know it. First, they didn’t offer anything I actually wanted. Second, if I had chosen even 1 of those ‘wonderful’ offers, I would have paid out far more than I would make on the survey. And third, if I did NOT choose any offers, my survey was not considered complete.”

“Bummer.”

“Yeah. I should have known better. Lesson learned. Again.”

She’s still looking for a way to make a few extra bucks.

What a Politician!

I call myself an Independent, because I don’t completely identify with either party. Most times when I vote, I’m voting against the one I think is the less desirable, rather than anybody I actually like.

So, Romney’s been visiting overseas. Apparently, he’s trying to show the American people that he’s ‘ready’ to be President. I’m not impressed.

He hasn’t managed to impress the people of the countries he’s visited, either. He stepped on toes (verbally) in England and Israel. When he tried to avoid any more problems by keeping his mouth shut (except for a well-rehearsed speech) in Poland, one of his ‘helpers’ lost his temper and used vulgar language telling reporters to have some respect in the holy Polish location they were in. Seems to me if the Polish people were insulted by the reporters trying to ask Mr. Romney questions, they would been even more insulted by the language used by Mr. Romney’s helper.

I did hear that the candidate’s assistant later apologized, but I have to wonder … did he apologize to the reporters for having lost his temper? Or to the Polish people for using such language in their sacred location? Is he still a member of Mr. Romney’s staff?

In my opinion, staff members are extensions of the candidate. If a staff member does something truly embarrassing, then I wait to see what happens. If that staff member faces consequences, that gives me a clue where the boss stands. If the staff member doesn’t face any consequences, then the boss is condoning whatever the staff member did.

In any case, I’m not thrilled with the prospect of having a president who insensitively insults some of our best allies. How would he treat countries we aren’t that close to?

True Colors

The more I hear about George Romney, the more I think I would have liked him. But I was too young to vote in 1968, so I didn’t pay any attention to politics. What little I know about George Romney is the bits of information I’ve learned from comments made during his son’s current candidacy for President.

When George was a candidate, he released a dozen years of tax returns. He wasn’t required to release that much, but he did it. To me, that says he wanted people to know he had nothing to hide, and was willing to go beyond what was required. A man of enthusiasm.

I don’t see those qualities in his son. I understand his father’s example of releasing a dozen years of taxes has become standard practice with presidential candidates. Surely Mitt knew that, but now that he is a candidate, he has released only 1 years’ tax form, and promised to release 2011’s “as soon as it’s done”.

Wait. It’s July and he hasn’t done last year’s taxes yet? Surely his bookkeeper knows these have to be done every year, right? You would think any bookkeeper working for someone as rich and important as a presidential candidate like Mitt Romney would have everything organized and streamlined so they could get his taxes filed on time.

“You don’t have any need to see any more tax forms,” the Romneys say. How about the need to know as much as possible about the person who may be elected the next president? Aren’t the American people entitled to that?

And now I hear that a group of people who had collected a few thousand signatures on a petition asking that Mr Romney release more tax forms did not find him in his political headquarters. No one in that office would accept the petition on Mr Romney’s behalf, and the people with the petition were escorted from the premises. Yeah, Mitt Romney sure does understand the American people.

There’s a saying that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But I think Mitt is a whole different kind of apple than his father was.

History Fails Us

No, I think that title is incorrect. I think it’s the History classes that have failed us. They have certainly failed me. All the recent Presidential election craziness got me thinking about past Presidents and what they did or did not accomplish during their tenure in the White House. And I’ve discovered I know very little in that field.

That got me thinking back to all the history classes I had to take in school; Colorado history, Missouri history, US History (in more than 1 grade) and World history. In all of those classes, ‘learning’ consisted of memorizing names, dates and places. I promptly forgot all of those things as soon as the last test was done – they held no interest or perceived value to me.

Another thing I remembered about these classes is that they slogged through the 1600s, 1700s and first half of the 1800s. By the time they got done with the Civil War, we had about 3 or 4 weeks left in the school year, and we raced to get through to 1950. Even as a kid, I figured those years that (almost) reached my birth date might have more bearing on my immediate life than stuff that was 300 years old. But we raced through it so quickly, I can’t say that with any certainty.

Personally, I don’t think making kids memorize names, dates and places really teaches them anything. What do I remember of history? The tiny bits and pieces of humanity that they accidentally let slip into their lectures. Bits like the suffering of Washington’s troops, camped for the winter in Valley Forge, freezing and without supplies.

I have always wanted some information that would help me identify with people in history. What did the average family eat, wear, do for entertainment, and how did this super-important event you want me to remember change or influence their lives? Maybe then I would remember that event; it might mean something to me.

Some teachers have been modifying their math classes to make the problems more personal for individual students. Why can’t history classes be more personal?

Airflight Technology

Okay, so Trudy flew home from vacation in Orlando, and almost as soon as she got home, she came down with “airflight crud.” It’s to be expected, right? Everybody knows that when you’re stuck in a confined space with 100+ other people, you are exposed to all types of germs, greatly increasing the chance that something will get past your body’s defenses and settle in for a visit.

This connection is so well known, there are even ‘medications’ that were developed to help you avoid catching other people’s illness. The most common kinds are a combination of vitamins, zinc and maybe some herbs. Such remedies might help, if your body is low on these ingredients. But it’s kind of like that old question about prunes as a laxative; Is 6 enough? Is 12 too many?

Are airliners equipped with air scrubbers? Even if they are, I’m not sure that would help prevent the spread of sickness. I’m thinking air scrubbers remove things like dust and CO0, but that squirmy little germs find a way through. Does anybody know A) do airliners have air scrubbers, and B) do air air scrubbers stop germs?

If nothing else, the flight crew could spritz the cabin with antibacterial air freshener between flights. Maybe that would help confine the available illnesses to catch to those brought aboard for this flight, and not something from 3 flights ago.

Are 'Family Values' Trademarked?

I saw a ‘photo’ posted on Facebook the other day. It said Family Values are eroding. Then it asked if possibly that could be because both parents have to work and don’t have any time to spend with the children and after paying the bills, there’s no money left for family hobbies or other ‘luxuries’.

It seemed really straightforward to me, and I’ve been watching this kind of stuff go on for the better part of my life, so I didn’t figure it was really anything new, just something that was being pointed out ... again. At the time, there were 2 comments for that posting; the second one taking umbrage because the posting was ‘obviously’ aimed at Republicans.

Huh?

I know the Republicans like to spout the phrase ‘Family Values’, but when did they trademark it so that nobody else could use it? When did anything that uses the phrase and wasn’t spouted by them somehow become an insult to them?

Family values are suffering, just like the ‘photo’ said. It’s been happening for a long time. About every 4 years, it becomes another hot phrase in the political arena. I don’t want a political party that merely talks about family values; I want the party that understands how families are struggling, and tries to do something to address those problems.

Hurry Up!

When I was young, I wanted technology to hurry up so I could partake in new endeavors. Hurry up and send people to the moon, so I have a chance to go! Hurry up and make aircars so I can have one! Hurry up and find other planets, outside our solar system!

I haven’t yet made it to the moon. I don’t have an aircar, or even a hybrid car, and I don’t think anybody is even trying to make a hover car anymore. And they have started finding other planets around other stars, even a couple that might be considered vaguely ‘Earth-like’. But I never became an astronomer or even an astro-physicists, so I’m not involved in any of those discoveries, and probably never will be. Bummer!

Now that I’ve slipped into middle-age (when I was young, someone who was my age would be considered old), I still want technology to hurry up, but I’m looking a lot more at medical technology. Hurry up and find a better way to deal with bad knees. Hurry up and find a way to make me no longer reliant on reading glasses! Hurry up and find a way for me to actually lose weight and not have to live on dry salads and/or exercise 12 hours a day!

Today, I went to a pre-screening to see if I qualified for a new study of a new lasik surgery procedure that would eliminate my need for reading glasses. I did not qualify. I was at the upper end of the age group they were looking at, so possibly if I were 5 years younger, I would have qualified.

Hurry up! I don’t want to be ‘a little too far gone’ every time one of these new procedures comes along!

Religious Freedom

A lot of politicians seem to look to our ‘Founding Fathers’ for support for their way of thinking about an issue, such as gay marriage, a woman’s place, etc.  While I respect our Founding Fathers for setting up our country, I think of them as people, not as gods incapable of making mistakes. I have three points to make here.

#1 – A lot of modern  politicians seem to have adopted an extreme religious stand, as I see it, and for some reason, they feel they must shove their opinion and beliefs down the throats of the rest of the country. They may say how much they admire our Founding Fathers, but they completely ignore that the Pilgrims came here to escape religious persecution. And right in the preamble to the constitution, the Founding Fathers asserted they wanted to ‘secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity’. Have you looked up the meaning of ‘liberty’? The very first meaning given in my source is, “freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control.” Of course, I don’t imagine any despot actually sees themselves as one. And how can a religious belief be despotic? When people who don’t hold that same belief are forced to act as if they do. If that isn’t religious persecution, I don’t know what is.

#2 – It also seems like these politicians have forgotten – or chose to ignore – that our Founding Fathers lived in a different time period. Not only has the date changed, but technology has changed, our language has changed, and our social morals have changed. These people want to pretend that times were much better when our Founding Fathers were putting together our nation. Really? I’ve used outhouses, sweated through summer camping trips, cooked over open fires and wood-burning stoves. That’s enough to convince me that I don’t want to go back. I’ve also been inoculated against small pox and polio, suffered through gall bladder attacks and have friends who have had a knee replaced, allowing them to walk again. Do I want to forego modern medicine to be crippled or die in agony? No thanks. The present is where I want to be, at least until the future gets here.

#3 - How would the Founding Fathers feel about being used to support a particular religious belief as a political stand? I don’t think very many would like it. The Founding Fathers were a varied lot; Roman Catholics, Episcopalian, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Lutherans, Dutch Reformed, Methodists, anti-clerical Christians and deists. If they were trying to incorporate a particular religious bent to their plans for a nation, how could they possibly have agreed what that bent would be?

Our Founding Fathers were capable of thinking for themselves, did not cater to their religious beliefs while trying to formulate a plan for a new nation. I can only hope that modern Americans can think for themselves enough not to mix oppressive religious beliefs with political issues.

Blood from a Turnip

I hear from friends about their (mostly) grown children still living at home – or coming back to live at home – because they mis-calculated how far they could make their paycheck stretch, and suddenly, they didn’t have enough money to cover the rent and groceries, along with everything else. Most of us went through something similar when we were that age, so we agree that it’s part of growing up. It’s how they’ve learned all their lives; push their boundaries until they get pushed back. Unfortunately, when young ones push their financial boundaries, it might take them years to get their finances straightened out again.

Even more unfortunate, some people never learn how to handle their finances.

But most of us do. And we manage to live most of our lives paying our bills fairly regularly, even if we are  living paycheck to paycheck.

Unless something breaks. We get laid off. A family member becomes terribly ill. You are forced into retirement in the midst of an ‘economic downturn’. That last one means that you (hopefully) get a pension, but it will be a set amount, month after month, while the cost of living goes up and up. Because of your age, you see the doctor more often, have more prescriptions to be filled, etc. And you no longer have any chance of working overtime, no chance of getting a raise to make it easier to pay those bills.

Suddenly, the collection phone calls coming to the house phone are no longer for my oldest kid; they’re for me.

What a revoltin’ development.

This is a Minimum?

Like most US families these days, money is a source of contention. All the bills keep going up, month after month, year after year. My little family has been slowly sliding toward the bottom of ‘Middle Class’ for over a decade. But on paper, it looks like we’re a long way from poverty.

That got me punching keys on my calculator, trying to figure out just what ‘poverty’ is. Politicians talk about people in poverty as if poverty was a minor inconvenience.

So, let’s take a look at this. A family of four, I heard recently, lived in poverty if their income was less than $23,000 a year. A full-time job is 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, so how hard could it be for a family to make that much? Not that easy, it turns out, because a single bread-winner would need to make $11.06 per hour.

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25. (This is NOT the minimum in all states. However, NO state has a minimum of $11.06.) A full time job at minimum wage only nets about $18,000 a year.

I know what you’re going to say; the other parent needs to get a job. That would push their income up to $36,000 a year. Good point. But who says this family has a second parent?

And even if it does, who will care for the children? 20 years ago, I was lucky to find a neighborhood woman who would watch 2 children for only $100 a week. I’m sure they want more than that now. If you want to take your children to a licensed day care, you will probably pay every after-taxes penny made by that 2^nd worker. What about family values? Are you a firm believer that children are better off being raised by a neighbor lady or a hired staff rather than their parents?

Another possibility is for the parents to work opposing shifts, to eliminate child care. This might work once the kids are in school, the night-shift parent could sleep during the day. But the parents would hardly ever see each other. Is that family-friendly?

I have my thoughts on how this ‘inconvenience’ should be addressed. I haven’t lived in poverty, but I have been that 2^nd bread-winner, and I’ve been the 2^nd bread-winner with 2 jobs when the 1^st bread-winner had 3. It should not be necessary for 1 family of four to have that many jobs in order to put food on the table.

Who Would Have Thought?

So, Mr Warren Buffet – a wealthy man I have come to respect – has been taunting other wealthy people to ‘pay their fair share’. The first response to his jibs was, “If you feel so strongly about this, make a donation to the government.”

To which Mr Buffet returned, “I will if you will.” So far as I’ve heard, he’s only matched the donation made by one other person, even though that person had made his donation before this spitting match began. I have not heard of any other elected officials – wealthy or otherwise - making any effort to personally alleviate the budget crisis for Mr Buffet to match.

Reminds me of that old saying, “Put your money where your mouth is.” Only, I think that refers to gambling, right?

Then Mr Buffet started talking about how unfair it was for him to pay a tax rate of about half what his secretary pays. He feels the wealthy should pay at least the same tax rate as the middle class. A LOT of people have mulled that over, and according to the polls I’ve seen, over 70% of the American people think that would be fair. Mr Obama thinks it would be fair. Somebody actually introduced ‘The Buffet Rule’ to Congress.

Well, who would have thought? It never came to vote, even though it had a simple majority of support. (Anybody know which Republicans supported it? That might be interesting to know.) But to keep it from being voted on, the wealthy Republicans banded together and filibustered. I’m sure the idea of having to pay more taxes than they already do seems like a personal attack on them.

Have they ever stopped to think what their lifestyle would be like if the 99% of the population who are NOT wealthy suddenly decided to ostracize them? No cooks, no maids, no butlers or gardeners or chauffeurs, no nannies for the kids, no pilot for the private jet. Now let’s get serious about it; no secretaries, no receptionist, nobody to work in their factory or office or whatever. Nobody to serve them in the restaurants or the night clubs or the bank … Who would have thought the 1% could be that dependent on the good will of the 99%?

Even Keys Are Complicated

In the last couple weeks, it seems like almost everybody I know has needed to get some keys made. A senior citizen wanted several copies of her house key, for the kids, the family friend, anybody who might be called upon to look in on her in her home. That wasn’t too difficult; her door lock is old enough that the key is still fairly simple to copy.

Two friends decided they needed to get a new key made for their carc. One because one of his keys stopped operating in his ignition switch, and the other because she had apparently lost one of her keys. Both were nervous about mis-placing the only one s/he had left.

Adam – let’s call him Adam – went to several key makers to get a new key made. Strangely, these new keys would work in his car door, and the trunk lock, but not in the ignition. Eventually, he went to the dealer and got a new key made. It only cost him $60-$75. Since I didn’t hear this story straight from him, I’m not sure how much it was.

His mother, Betty – also not her real name – was at a local hardware store for grass seed and a new drill when she remembered she wanted a new key made for her ‘new’ car. (She’s had it a couple years, and it wasn’t new then, but it’s far newer than the ’91 she’d been driving for over a decade, so she calls it new.) She handed her lone remaining key to the key-making person, who promptly handed it back with the information, “I can’t duplicate that. It’s got a computer chip in it.” So Betty also will need to go to the dealer, and instead of a couple bucks, it will cost BIG bucks.

This is ridiculous. THEY (corporations, in this case) came up with a way to ‘protect’ us from having our keys stolen and duplicated for the purpose of stealing our cars. Really? If someone steals our keys, they have access to stealing our car. So what it really means is that when WE (the customer) loses a key – which is always a possibility – we get to pay THEM big bucks to duplicate that key, instead of paying a smaller amount to a smaller, local company. Talk about squeezing blood out of a turnip.

Revamp the Tax Codes

My husband has grown increasingly frustrated trying to make sense out of filing taxes. Unfortunately, they have to be done. This year, he handed me the folder of papers and asked me to take it to a tax preparer.

A couple decades ago, we used to get some substantial refunds back from both the federal and state. It gave us a chance to take a chunk out of our debts, even if we had ‘loaned’ it to the government without getting any interest from it. The kids are pretty much grown and gone, and it happens that we are no longer paying enough in taxes.

Yeah, that’s right. We are looking at paying a bill to both the feds and the state. We not only are trying to clean up some Christmas debt, and stay on top of our regular debt, pay our real estate taxes, license all our cars and pay this year’s insurance premiums, now we have taxes to pay.

“Where’s the problem?” I asked the tax preparer. “For years, our taxes have been withheld at the appropriate rate for ‘married, no dependants’. We assumed that would at least put us in the approximate neighborhood of what we would owe for the year. But just in case, I instructed my part-time job to hold out extra.”

I was told that the W4 we fill out for our employers has little to do with what we will owe in taxes. Each employer withholds as if that job is our only source of income, which puts us in a lower tax bracket. Then when we file our taxes, our sources of income are combined, which puts us in a higher tax bracket. Suggestions for ‘rectifying’ the problem was to change our “married, no dependents” to “single, no dependents”, ask them to hold out extra. One last suggestion was to contact my pension plan manager and ask them to hold out a higher percentage of my pension for taxes.

I seem to vaguely remember one of the President Bushes cutting back how much was deducted from our paychecks. It was heralded as a means of stimulating the economy, a way of giving the middle class a few extra dollars in their pocket. This doesn’t really make sense to me. A couple extra bucks in my paycheck doesn’t go far enough to do any good; it’s not enough to pay a bill, it’s just enough to get a frappachino I really don’t need. I’d much rather ‘loan’ the government a couple extra bucks each paycheck and get a refund rather than a bill.

Why do we have to jump through hoops just to break even?

Customer Service

How many times has it happened to you? You’ve got errands to run with your family or friends, there’s not enough time to do everything, and you decide to pick up some fast food. At the drive-through microphone, you place your order; 5 assorted sandwiches, 4 fries, 1 onion rings, a chocolate milk shake and 5 large drinks.

Now you drive to the window, pay the bill, and they start handing items out; 6 drinks, one of them a shake, and two bags of food. You drive home, toss a comedy in the CD player, kick off your shoes and start to divvy up the food. What do you find?

The chocolate shake is strawberry.

There’s only 3 fries, but 2 onion rings.

There’s only 4 sandwiches, 1 of which bears no resemblance to anything you ordered.

You check the receipt; everything you requested is listed, and in the correct amounts. You lose your temper, call the manager to complain. His response? “Are you sure we filled it wrong?”

Welcome to the new customer service, where they are so concerned with getting orders out fast, they don’t bother to make sure they’ve gotten it right. And how can you prove anything is wrong? You’ve driven away. You could have done anything with your order since it was given to you.

I know people who don’t use the drive-through anymore. But even going inside and placing your order ‘to go’ doesn’t mean they’ll get it right.

A Place to Sit

A few years back, a friend went to a specialist. Walking had become so difficult, she couldn’t go a full block without stopping to let her knee pain fade. She was just past 50, and even though the doctor agreed that her arthritis was bad, he felt she was ‘too young’ to have a knee replaced. He gave her a pair of knee braces to help keep the bones in proper alignment and suggest she lose weight. But the braces tended to slide down her legs, which didn’t keep anything in alignment, and without being able to use her knees for exercise, it was pretty impossible to lose weight.

About 5 years later, she returned, braced to receive shots of fake lubricant in her knees, even though that stuff had to be renewed (more shots) every 3 months. NOW he was ready to replace one of her knees, but felt she could ‘put up with’ the other one a while longer. He still wanted her to lose weight.

Today, she is doing better. Only the one knee has been replaced, but the ‘old’ knee only occasionally gives her any pain. She belongs to a gym and works out fairly regularly, but has only gotten up to 1.5 miles on a treadmill. She enjoys theme parks and shopping malls, and used to enjoy a nature walk from time to time, but she really can’t do those any more. Why not? Because a lot of these places don’t have benches in the locations where she needs them.

For instance, at a theme park, you are expected to walk from your car somewhere in a sea of a parking lot to the entry gate, stand in line to get in, and then walk some more before you come to a snack place that might have a bench. And after you’ve spent the day walking and standing in line (with only a minute here or there sitting on a ride), you are expected to walk all the way back out the gate and to your car, if you can remember where you left it.

She had a handicapped sticker for her car for 3 months while she recovered from her surgery, but now she gets to park out with the regular people, beyond the handicapped stalls, the pregnancy stalls, the taxi stalls ... and there won’t be a bench for her to catch her breath when she finally gets to the mall door, either.

I don’t think a day goes by that you don’t hear somebody mention that today’s citizens are aging, that the ‘baby boomers’ are starting to retire. So why can’t anybody install a few benches scattered along the pathway?

Entitlements

I’m sure you’ve heard this word a lot lately; the Republican candidates have assigned it a negative connotation. I’m not sure exactly what they include in the ‘foul’ embrace of ‘entitlements’, but they certainly have been pushing my buttons.

Social Security – I’ve worked over 40 years, have been paying into Social Security since my mid-teens. When I can start receiving an ss check every month, then … darn right I’m entitled to it! It’s MY money! Politicians talk about the trouble social security is in. I remember hearing – years ago – that Congress saw social security as another pocket they could dip into whenever they felt like spending. Has that money ever been put back in? It’s just like a pension plan, right? Of course it breaks down if the company dips into the pension plan to buy office furniture! But that isn’t the fault of the people who have been paying in.

Medicare – I have heard horror stories about Medicare, like a 96-year-old falls on a patch of ice and breaks a leg (at least), and Medicare argues that it wasn’t ‘necessary’ for the ambulance to take her to the hospital, and they wouldn’t pay for that. But the fact is, businesses don’t continue paying any of your insurance premiums once you retire. And buying your own insurance is not feasible. I know someone who pays over 1/3 of her pension to her mortgage. She recently got a quote for health insurance that would take another 1/3 of her pension each month. If she wants to eat, have water to drink and keep her house above freezing in winter, all her other bills would go unpaid. So she’s gambling she won’t get sick, won’t slip on any ice patches. At least, not until she can sign up for Medicare in a few years.

The fanatics who are fanning the flames against ‘entitlements’ must either be rich, or they have ‘forgotten’ that old people don’t just disappear when they retire. After working for decades, retirees are hoping for a few years of relatively good health when they can enjoy themselves. Possibly they still have one or both of their own parents who are now relying on them for assistance, a ride to the doctor’s office, or so on. What do these fanatics do when their mother falls? Do they say, “Oh, well, she’s past her prime, and we can’t expect any more productivity from her, so just leave her there.” Or do they call for an ambulance, take her to a doctor to be checked out?

If It Tastes Good...

Now he's got an idea what I've been going through for years.

Hubby went to the hospital a while ago and wound up staying overnight, since they put a stint in an artery/vein of his heart (I can't keep it straight which is which.) After that, he was sent to cardiac rehab, where they assumed he'd had a heart attack. That was the first thing that pissed him off. No matter how many times he told them he had not had a heart attack, they stuck to that assumption.

They told him not to eat out more than once a month. To cut back on the amount he eats, and ingest more veggies (something I'd been telling him for a while, but what do I know?). They wanted him to walk at least 5 times a week, watch his salt, forget eggs... They had whole mess of things for him to do and not do.

I did what I could to help. I hate fish, the smell of it kills any appetite I might have, but I got salmon and tilapia fillets for him to alternate in the grill with his chicken breasts. I got a variety of frozen veggies that could be cooked in the microwave and tasted better than anything I knew how to cook. I had him get involved in deciding what he wanted for supper. I got so tired
of hearing him complain, "If it tastes good, I can't have it!" I've been saying that for YEARS! I bit my tongue to keep from uttering the same words I used to hear whenever I made that complaint; "If you have to do it, you just have to do it."

Yeah. Sure.

But neither of us is a chef; we don't know how to change our entire cooking repertoire and make it taste good. They're so busy telling you what you CAN'T do, they don't take time to give you any clues how to change your cooking to replace the foods you can't have.

We may have to do it, but it doesn't mean we have to like it.