The Week from Heck
Where have I been? What have I been doing? Why haven't I posted an update here in almost a week? Why? Why?!
Well, it's been Heck Week around here. Not only is it busier than Heck, but it's been one annoying thing after another. The bright side is that my copy of the Earth 2 miniseries showed up (Alan: keep it to yourself, buck!).
We got a call from some anesthesiology office, confirming our mailing address. They had our apartment number wrong, so I corrected them. This week, we got a bill from them: $2,000 for my wife's epidural, along with a small finance charge because the bill was past due. Of course the bloody bill is past due; they've been sending it to someone else for the past month or two. I don't see why their mistake is our fault, but whatever.
The up side is that they do not have our insurance information on file, meaning that this bill is liable to be trimmed down quite a bit once they do. Thank ye gods! says I. An expense of this magnitude is well out of reach, even when our savings account was relatively full. If worse comes to worse, I suppose we'll need to make payments on it.
I love being lower middle class. Or am I upper lower class?
Combine this with another bill for $350 from the hospital, that arrived yesterday, which has also been sent to the wrong address ever since Stephen was born. No finance charges, as far as I know, but the bill doesn't give a break down of what the charges are. For all I know, our insurance company won't pay for the pork chop dinner that my wife had the night after the boy popped out.
Responsibility. What does it mean?
I've always considered being able to properly prioritize one's life as being indicative of a healthy sense of responsibility. Making sure that the important things are taken care of so that you can continue to live a relatively normal life. I'd like to think I'm responsible. I try to pay my bills on time, and I seldom fail to do so; I try to make sure the litter boxes are clean, at least until CJ takes a squat in the corner, or pees on a sofa cushion; I kiss my son goodnight, even after he wakes me up at o'dark thirty because he's hungry and wet.
I asked one of the HR ladies about this situation today. She told me that I'd get through it, and that my time would come. Dealing with medical insurance is painful, but I'd rather have it than not. It's the difference between $1,500 in medical bills with the insurance, and close to $10,000 without.
The funny thing is that Stephen would be worth every red cent of it, even if he cost me a million dollars, or resulted in a life of indentured servitude. Note that I am quite happy that I don't owe anyone a million bucks for him, and I am eternally thankful that I'm not a slave (unless I'm his slave) as a result of his being born.
Oh, another kicker: my Gen Con badge was lost in the mail. I still hadn't gotten in on Tuesday, so I wrote to the Gen Con folks and asked about it. Turns out the darn thing was mailed to me on July 14th. I verified my address, and they've got it down right. Heck, they've had the same address on file since I went to Gen Con So Cal in 2003.
How unusual is it that things get lost in the mail? Two payments that I've made for two entirely different expenses have been lost in the mail in the past two months. Try to tell the people you owe money that the check was lost en route, and you can almost taste the skepticism. Are these things rotting in a dead letter room somewhere? Did the stamps fall off? Or is the Postal Service to blame?
::sigh::
Back to the badge: Thanks to Stacie at Gen Con LLC, I've got another one waiting for me at the will-call in Indianapolis. I'll have to give her a hug if I manage to meet her, because she's been all sorts of help with the badge thing. As a person who buys things for a living, I know first-hand that excellent customer service is not easy to find.
Well, I need to do some work tonight. Writing work, that is. I've set a goal for myself that I really doubt I will accomplish this weekend. Tomorrow is liable to be impossibly busy, considering the events that are planned. It's looking like I may have a 12 hour workday in my future, leaving Sunday as my only day to write.
I reckon my next post will be all about the Weekend from Heck.
Well, it's been Heck Week around here. Not only is it busier than Heck, but it's been one annoying thing after another. The bright side is that my copy of the Earth 2 miniseries showed up (Alan: keep it to yourself, buck!).
We got a call from some anesthesiology office, confirming our mailing address. They had our apartment number wrong, so I corrected them. This week, we got a bill from them: $2,000 for my wife's epidural, along with a small finance charge because the bill was past due. Of course the bloody bill is past due; they've been sending it to someone else for the past month or two. I don't see why their mistake is our fault, but whatever.
The up side is that they do not have our insurance information on file, meaning that this bill is liable to be trimmed down quite a bit once they do. Thank ye gods! says I. An expense of this magnitude is well out of reach, even when our savings account was relatively full. If worse comes to worse, I suppose we'll need to make payments on it.
I love being lower middle class. Or am I upper lower class?
Combine this with another bill for $350 from the hospital, that arrived yesterday, which has also been sent to the wrong address ever since Stephen was born. No finance charges, as far as I know, but the bill doesn't give a break down of what the charges are. For all I know, our insurance company won't pay for the pork chop dinner that my wife had the night after the boy popped out.Responsibility. What does it mean?
I've always considered being able to properly prioritize one's life as being indicative of a healthy sense of responsibility. Making sure that the important things are taken care of so that you can continue to live a relatively normal life. I'd like to think I'm responsible. I try to pay my bills on time, and I seldom fail to do so; I try to make sure the litter boxes are clean, at least until CJ takes a squat in the corner, or pees on a sofa cushion; I kiss my son goodnight, even after he wakes me up at o'dark thirty because he's hungry and wet.
I asked one of the HR ladies about this situation today. She told me that I'd get through it, and that my time would come. Dealing with medical insurance is painful, but I'd rather have it than not. It's the difference between $1,500 in medical bills with the insurance, and close to $10,000 without.
The funny thing is that Stephen would be worth every red cent of it, even if he cost me a million dollars, or resulted in a life of indentured servitude. Note that I am quite happy that I don't owe anyone a million bucks for him, and I am eternally thankful that I'm not a slave (unless I'm his slave) as a result of his being born.
Oh, another kicker: my Gen Con badge was lost in the mail. I still hadn't gotten in on Tuesday, so I wrote to the Gen Con folks and asked about it. Turns out the darn thing was mailed to me on July 14th. I verified my address, and they've got it down right. Heck, they've had the same address on file since I went to Gen Con So Cal in 2003.
How unusual is it that things get lost in the mail? Two payments that I've made for two entirely different expenses have been lost in the mail in the past two months. Try to tell the people you owe money that the check was lost en route, and you can almost taste the skepticism. Are these things rotting in a dead letter room somewhere? Did the stamps fall off? Or is the Postal Service to blame?
::sigh::
Back to the badge: Thanks to Stacie at Gen Con LLC, I've got another one waiting for me at the will-call in Indianapolis. I'll have to give her a hug if I manage to meet her, because she's been all sorts of help with the badge thing. As a person who buys things for a living, I know first-hand that excellent customer service is not easy to find.Well, I need to do some work tonight. Writing work, that is. I've set a goal for myself that I really doubt I will accomplish this weekend. Tomorrow is liable to be impossibly busy, considering the events that are planned. It's looking like I may have a 12 hour workday in my future, leaving Sunday as my only day to write.
I reckon my next post will be all about the Weekend from Heck.
posted by Gary at 8:15 PM
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