It’s the most bogus time of the year. I know that’s not how the song goes, but bite me. I’m in a bad mood today because Regions Hospital just called and told me that the echocardiogram and heart doc visit I have been trying to plan for the last two months and had finally managed to get scheduled for this Friday (echo) and next Thursday (doc visit) were not covered by my insurance so they would have to cancel the appointments.
Which is as annoying as fuck. They called me in October to schedule the visits, then when I showed up the next week for the first appointment, they had no record of it. I was confused because they had called me, not the other way around. But there were problems with the scheduling program, so my brother and I figured they had either sheduled the wrong person in my place or the prgram didn’t ‘take’ the appointment. The administrative assistant noted that my anniversary of the first echo was in early December, so she scheduled me for Friday (this is Wednesday) and the following Thursday.
You would think that they would have something in the program to notify them that the insurance was no longer accepted, even if it wasalready in the program. The problem is two-fold. I am in the Obama plan and the Blue Cross portion of it was taken away at the beginning of this year. In tandem, Regions stopped takiing Universal Health Care at the beginning of this year.
Which blows, honestly. THat means someone without decent healthcare insurance would not get treatment at one of the best regional hospitals. Which is appalling. Putting that aside, however, I can’t get past the fact that they did not realize that my insurance would not cover the appointments until two days before. I’m not mad at the person who called me, but that seems like a wide crack in their system. I’m also deflated because it had been such a pain to get the appointments (for the appointment with the doc, it was literally the last open spot he had for the year), and now I have to go through it all again with someone who doesn’t kno;w me or what I went through. I’ll do it after the holidays.
Speaking of the holidays, I’m already tired of them. I’m tired in general, by the way. You know that draggy feeling you get when you’re about to get sick? That’s what I’ve been feeling for several weeks (since Shadow was sick). At first, I chalked it down to stress, but now, I’m wondering if I’m actually sick. I’m pretty sure it’s not COVID, but there’s a small doubt niggling in the back of my mind.
Anayway. It’s the lead up to Christmas, and it’s the time of year that I’m especially happy that I don’t work in an office. In addition, because I do all my shopping online, I can escape the relentless forced cheer for the most part. I can mute anything I want online and I have changed the two channels in my car that only play all Christmas music for the entire month of December. Which, who the fuck does that? More than one radio station, apparently.
I used to watch Christmast commercials in horrid fascination. They were so focused on selling shit–which, I mean, duh. Yeah, Minna. Commercials were trying to sell you shit. No kidding. It’s what they do! But you’d think they’d try to be subtle about it. Nope. Yeah, they did the ‘but faaaamily’ up front as if to inoculate themselves from accusations of being crass.
The two that really annoyed me was ‘Every Kiss begins with Kay” and any car commercial that had an ecstatic wife being happy about the brand new car her hubby bought her for Christmas until she saw that the neighbor had bougt his wife a different and better car. I mean, she got a fucking new car for Christmas. For fuck’s sake.
As for Kay, I had an immediate revulsion to the idea that you had to get a diamond in order to put out. It made sex so transactional and implied that women had to be paid to have sex. I’m not naive enough to think that women don’t trade things for sex in a relationship, but man does Kay make it right up front and center. No matter how much they try to gussy it up as being appreciative of your love and blah, blah, blah, it’s right there in their tagline! You can’t get a kiss without spending thousands to get a Kay bauble for your girlfriend. That’s some deep cynicism, Kay. And sexism to boot!
Look. I know that businesses gotta business. Capitalism is the be-all, end-all in our society and there is nothing that can’t be used to sell something to hapless Americans. Call me cynical if you want, but it’s true. I wrote an editorial when I was in high school about the crass commercialism of Christmas and that was thirty years-plus years ago.
When Danny Lavery was Dear Prudie, he would emphasize that no one could ruin Chrismas. It was one day of the year that would come and go no matter what anyone did. It sounds facile and glib, but he’s right.
Americans are sold a lot of bunkum as to what the holidays are supposed to be. It’s starts with Thanksgiving with the turkey and all the trimmings (minus the genoicide of the Native Americans), and it continues through Christmas with…uh…ham? Yeah, let’s go with that. People get so wound up in what HAS to be there in order to make it a true Thanksgiviing/Christmas. My brother was telling me that his ex still held a grudge because my mother said she was bringing cranberries to their first Thanksgiving together and it was a cranberry ‘salad’ that my mom made. It had mini-marshmallows, mandarin slices, Cool Whip, walnuts, and a few other ingredients. It was very tasty, but accarding to my ex-SIL, Not The Thing. To her, cranberries meant cranberry sauce (very bitter) and nothing else. Christmas had to be Christmas Day and not the night before, and it didn’t matter that my brother had to run sound for church on Christmas Day.
When I was in my twenties and thirties, I used to fiy on the day of a holiday because it was much cheaper. This was usually to see my boyfriend, and I didn’t care if we celebrated the next day. The important thing was that we were togethers–not the acutal day. Or what we actually ate.
I will admit, though. I love winter, but I grit my teeth through the holiday season. I don’t hate it as I once did, but I don’t get all warm and fuzzy about it, either. So when others talk about it, I have nothing to say. I don’t want to spoil other people’s excitement, but I also don’t want to gush about how great the holidays are. I mostly remain silent or make nonsensical noises that could be construed as agreement. It’ll be over before I know it–at least, that’s what I keep telling myself.