Blown Transmission Karma

My emergency room hospital bill arrived.

I didn’t think much about it as I opened the envelope with a sharp letter opener made of mahogany and brass. I got it at the Asian mall in a store that only sold goods made in Thailand. The blade was wavy, like a Balinese Kris. I bought it years ago as a gift for Autumn but when we split up she left it in a bag of stuff at my house. My guess was she didn’t want it anymore. Maybe it would be a reminder she didn’t need on a regular basis, or perhaps she never liked it to begin with. Realizing I would never know either way I continued cutting the envelope open along it’s edge as if I was slitting the belly of a trout I just hauled out of the Eel River.

Unfolding the letter’s contents I thought about how much my insurance company might cover. They warned me before I drove to the local hospital it was “out of network.” I didn’t give a rat’s ass at the time because I thought I was about to keel over dead and the insurance nitwits were trying to get me to go to a clinic that was much further away from where I live. Skimming through the form letter bullshit I landed near the bottom of the second page at a dollar figure. The bill with my insurance coverage came to nearly twelve hundred dollars.

Holy shit.

Looking over the details I noted that the insurance company did get my fifty dollar co-pay the month before. So what the hell was this all about? They didn’t cover a damn thing. Well that isn’t entirely true. The benevolent insurance people did manage to pay for a measly forty-two dollar item. How gracious of them. Then I wondered, why in the hell am I paying these bastards if they can’t take care of straightforward business like a late night emergency room visit? Screw ‘em. I called up that moment and dropped them like a sack of hot bricks. They weren’t going to get another dime out of my wallet.

This is what I get for not paying attention to my insurance election choices when they come up for renewal once a year. Also, this must be some sort of karma payback. Not that I really believe in that junk or anything, but it did make some awkward sense. Years back I had a little slip up while driving Autumn’s car. I never could be certain about it but I may have damaged the manual transmission in her car late one night after work. Coward that I am I failed to bring it up until we were on a fateful road trip to Reno. The five-speed in her Japanese hatchback imploded, leaving a trail of heavy gear oil streaking through the slow lane for a couple of blocks. We ended up stranded over night in a redneck town. That incident cost Autumn over a thousand bucks.

So maybe this was Autumn’s revenge. She caused me enough grief and pain when we broke up to check into a hospital. I got the hateful bill in my face now, for about the same amount of loot. Thinking about it I couldn’t help but wonder if we were even.

~ by factorypeasant on August 21, 2008.