My Bad Day.
Insecurity. The Louvre, Paris.
It is only 12:16 p.m., and I am already completely out of patience with my day. And I'm going to tell you why.
They turned the water off in our building last night to work on the pipes. This morning the "water" is back "on," if by water you mean "brown water" and "on" means "in intermittent spurts and hisses." Shower very unpleasant. Corinne very displeased. Went straight from grubby shower to the dentist's office, where a lady in scrubs tells me I need four separate gum surgeries to repair damage from brushing my teeth too hard. I ask how long it takes to heal. "Oh, the graft can be sore for one, two weeks," she says. "But that's not the painful part. The painful part is where we cut the tissue out of your palate. Ooh! You will not like me after that." One step ahead of you, lady.
Leave the chair and the receptionist hands me a letter from my insurance company denying my claim from my last visit. I call United. Although I am holding a letter on their company letterhead with a claim number saying that I don't exist, in Opposite Land where the operator lives they have a record of me but no claim number. Here is where I should say huffily, "This is why we need health care reform!" No. This is why we need a machine that allows you to reach through a telephone line and punch the person at the other end in the face. Also, laws should be amended to make this a legal form of First Amendment expression, and not assault.
Then I went to the Social Security office to begin Step 1 of the 2,647-step process to change my name. The Social Security office is where hopes and dreams go to die. Literally, when I entered the building it was sunny, and when I left it was gray and cloudy. I waited an hour so that a clerk could type into the computer the information on a form I filled out the night before and hand me a slip of paper saying I'd get my new card in two weeks. There are decade-old posters all over the Social Security office with spokeswoman Patty Duke cheerfully explaining how to apply for retirement benefits; somehow, this makes the experience all the more intolerable.
Also, in the lobby I held the elevator for two men - in New York, an act on par with giving a stranger your kidney - and when we got to the office they both pushed ahead of me in line. Please see suggested changes to assault laws above.
Ahead on my schedule today are calls to my insurance, two different accountants, a doctor's office and the Orange County Recorder, all to address discrepancies in our relationship or to ask for things they don't want to give me. This is a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. I think I'll move to Australia.
Posted on Wednesday, Oct 21, 2009
