Monday, November 09, 2009
Bennie's sending holiday regrets to dear old Aunt Z
Ben Beagle
The aging, semi-hysterical retired reporter rides shotgun with the greatest station wagon driver of them all down the rocky road of life. Mondays and Wednesdays, steady as she goes.
Recent columns
Dear Aunt Zelda:
(Yes. I know Aunt Zelda would be about the age of the pyramids by now. But she remains immortal to Old Yours Truly here.)
Here is your favorite nephew Bennie writing to tell you that I wanted to attend your party this past Halloween -- although I always have breathing problems when I bob for apples.
When I was a boy I always had a good time at your taffy pulls, even though I was not a favorite with the girls -- including Hildy Massenheimer, who always let the taffy break on purpose so that she didn't have to kiss me.
I figured that I was a washout if girls would have hidden in an unoccupied grave rather than doing a little apple bobbing with me.
A little lite reading
The above, however, is not what this letter is about.
I don't want you to worry if I don't answer the phone or you notice that the car is covered with pine needles.
Believe me, I still salivate at the thought of your sausage gravy on homemade biscuits, but this is not to be right now.
For today, I received from my Part D Medicare drug insurance company two booklets that are about as long as the Elizabethan English course I took in college -- the difference being that I halfway understood the college course.
And this means that I'm going to be out of it for a while trying to understand what's going on.
This means that I'm probably going to miss Thanksgiving, too, and I hope you'll pop some of your minced pie in the freezer for me. And give Hildy a dirty look for me.
I'm told to read all of these two booklets, which contain 168 pages, and I figure I they're going to take up most of my time, say, until Twelfth Night.
Premium bad news
They do try to make it easy on those of us who are almost over the hill.
On Page 4 of Booklet No. 1, it's easy to find out that your premium is going up 11 bucks a month.
That's just about the only thing I understand among 186 pages.
Then -- as if we didn't have enough trouble -- we have the 77-page booklet that lists what they call a formulary listing covered drugs, and it's possible to get lost in there for a couple of weeks.
I'm still trying to find this inhalant that's supposed to be keeping me alive and my blood pressure medicine, not to mention some others I'd rather not mention here.
Whoa! I just found that stuff I take for back pain.
Love, Bennie
Ben Beagle's column runs in Monday's Extra.
