RE: Humor Column About Interacting With Corporate America...

Assured About Insurance

My theory is that interactions with institutions cost you, one way or another; psychically, physically or emotionally. Sometimes it’s a trifecta and, “Ding, ding, ding!” all three are launched.

You’ve got a problem with your bill? Over-billed, schmover-billed. You never received notification on that rate hike? Well, you should have known the rates were increasing. You weren’t aware of the thousand-day cancellation, notification policy? That’s odd because it’s pretty standard.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re right and they’re wrong. Eventually – and it will be eventually – you will be proven wrong. Again.

Seasons will pass, leaves will fall (and grow again) and pounds will pack on, all while you’re still on hold waiting to be told – you got it – that you are oh-so-incorrect.

While the mental price tag is a biggie the real doozy of them all is the sacrificial expense that is the wedge of time you tithed to the institutional interaction.

Nope, it’s not worth the stress and I’ve had that proven to me time and time again. These conglomerates will find a way to prevail and, ultimately, they will come out the victor. (Where are those anti-trust laws when you need them?)

In the end, you’ll still have to pay, stay, or go away, but there will be no successful, “Rage the Machine” moment to tell your grandkids about.

I’ve been there, baby. Save yourself the frustration. The only problem is that I’m often guilty of not taking my own advice and I fail to remember how exceedingly life-sucking these seemingly innocuous interactions can be.

Seasons pass, leaves fall (and grow again) and pounds pack on, so I get distracted and I forget. (Sometimes all it takes is a shiny object to distract me and render me an amnesiac, but that’s probably going to be a different column.)

My Institutional Interactional Lesson (I.L.L.) as in, “I’ll never win,” came to me via my insurance company.

The eternal optimist that I am, I had this silly notion that I would call them with a quick question and it would be answered easily. Painlessly, even.

I shudder to think what would happen if I had an accident to report, or a claim. This particular contact was necessitated by a rather plebian request for clarification of the “other dwelling” rider on my insurance policy. I was looking to ensure that we weren’t paying for more insurance than we needed, so I was seeking assurance in that regard.

A fast look-see at the amount due on our latest statement registered a mite on the high side and left me wondering if the “other dwelling” we were getting dinged for meant that the dog house on the side of our “estate” was now carrying insurance or was our garage considered the car’s dwelling? I rang them up, as the British would say, to get things cleared up.
ME: “Hello, may I please speak with Jacques French’s assistant?”

INSURANCE CONGLOMERATE RECEPTIONIST:
“He doesn’t have an assistant.”

ME: “Okay. Then, how about Mr. French himself?”

INSURANCE CONGLOMERATE RECEPTIONIST:
“He’s not here today.”

ME: “Okay. Do you know when he’ll be in?”

INSURANCE CONGLOMERATE RECEPTIONIST:
“Ummm…[looking at some sort of calendar it would seem, or consulting a clock to note the flying by of time as we have the fun that is this interchange]…he’s taking a vacation day. He’ll be back tomorrow.”

(No doubt this vacation day was necessitated by the unending fatigue he must suffer engaging in conversations like this with the receptionist.)
Seasons passed, leaves fell (and grew again) and pounds packed on, but I persevered.

ME: “Is there someone else taking his place today? Perhaps, Mrs. French?” I kidded.
Seeming not to notice my effort at levity the receptionist intoned monotonously, “No one is taking his place, really.”

Doggedly I pressed on.

ME: “Okay. Is anyone covering for him?”

INSURANCE CONGLOMERATE RECEPTIONIST:
“Not really.”

I tried another tact. Maybe she needed to take control of the problem-solving.

ME: “Any suggestions as to who I might speak with?”

INSURANCE CONGLOMERATE RECEPTIONIST:
“Sure,” she answered perkily. “I’ll put you through to Darcy.”
Excellent. I would finally speak with the reclusive and hopefully helpful Darcy via my old school land line. I was sure she would be more than willing to help me with my insurance needs, concerns, or questions. This was my big moment when I was going to be able to direct my burning question to a real, live, qualified person.
Darcy answered the telephone on the first ring with a strong and confident voice and asked me, “May I help you?”

And you know what? I’d forgotten my question.
I hung up and shuffled off to take a nap in my main dwelling.

RE: Holiday Column...of sorts...Ode to the Spatula (Humor)

Ode to the Spatula

The holidays are upon us and, thus, I feel it only appropriate that I write a thematic column. Granted, this cannot exactly be classified as standard yuletide fare, but here ‘tis.

‘Tis also the season to eat our weight in carbohydrates which got me thinking about the topic of baking during this year's impending Noël. (Don't be confused, especially you peripatetic cookie eaters, because Noël is also the name of a Colombian cookie manufacturer.)

Though the topic is not about the goodwill of men, it does involve will; the will to bake rivaling my will to sleep past any time I need to get up for work, play or comet watching Here and now I will offer up discourse about my friend, the spatula, without which, in the baking world, there would be no reason to even pre-heat the oven. Don't bother grabbing that oven mitt with the holly-wearing deer on it, either, if you don't have one of these handy kitchen items in rotation.

My love of this miraculous culinary invention has led me to learn more about it and share my findings, free of charge. I'm doing this because we underestimate the happiness inanimate objects of convenience can provide and they're often no more than a drawer away. Also, I just love my nifty multi-colored spatulas and I'm goofy enough to admit that to you all.

Why is the spatula column-worthy, you ask?

In order to respond to this query we must embark upon a quest not unlike a pursuit of the Holy Grail, aptly named because it was a journey taken by the multitudes through the millennia to locate a dish, plate or cup from the Last Supper. In our case, we're looking for the Holy Spatula, as it were, and in present times our seeking looks a bit different. I Googled spatula.

Google is nothing if not a giving search engine, in line with the season, therefore, it assists you without asking by filling in blanks that you didn't know you had. For instance, I merely typed in “spatula” and a veritable feast of facts bubbled over.

The sheer volume of synonyms for this beautifully crafted, seemingly innocuous stick wearing a saucy-shaped rubberized headdress is rather remarkable. It seems every language has its own word for this treasure of a turner; an egg slice, a flipper if its nomenclature is Canadian English, a yiwen or danny in Fiji (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiji), whereas Americans often call it a bowl scraper.

I did eventually determine that a spatula must have “a broad rounded apex and a narrow base” and is much different than a garden variety turner which I discovered simply possesses the purpose of turning food. That cleared things up dramatically for me. My life is all about gaining knowledge, if not wealth. The problem for me then became focus because I was provided with a bevy of choices that had me following leads on topics that were not REMOTELY related to kitchen utensils.

Here is a non-comprehensive list of items that sprung forward from tapping in “spatula” which turned out to be a root word of sorts; “Ultrasonic Skin Spatula” which touts the ability to put “new waves in your skin care treatment,” “Spatula City,” a parody that Weird Al Yankovic recorded for a fake store, a punk band about which not much is known that goes by the name of “Spatula,” Spatuletail hummingbirds, a species of endangered birds found only in Peru, and Spatulatta, an organization that teaches kids to cook, so there are cookbooks, shows and a juvenile product line of Pepto-Bismol jellybeans. Okay, I'm kidding about that last one, but that could be a product, couldn't it?

A spatula by any other name is just as sweet because it accomplishes everyday miracles, if not turning water into wine, then transforming a little batter into plenty of batter. Have you had this experience? There stand those last two cupcake reservoirs that you need to fill. You whip out your trusty spatula, aerobically work the sides of the bowl and, Wha-la! Then there were two. It's not just a holiday miracle, but an everyday miracle.

Now, granted, it's no “Mary's face on a tortilla,” but it does make for some cheap entertainment, as well as magic-filled baking days.

Diane Dean-Epps is a comedienne and writer. Contact her at www.diane deanepps.com. Diane has written a new book, “I'll Always Be There For You … Unless I'm Somewhere Else?!” Meet the author during a booksigning on Saturday, Dec. 11, 2 to 3:30 p.m., at Tome's Bookstore (Sierra Mountain Coffee Roasters), 671 Maltman Drive #3, Grass Valley.

RE: Serenity Now! Humor about the elusive creature that is relaxation...

Serenity Now!



In our “hurry up and relax” culture we search for the elusive commodity that is serenity as though it’s our lost keys. The visual I always get is from Seinfeld when George Costanza’s father, played by Jerry Stiller, screams “Serenity Now!” in that classic episode when he is attempting to achieve a nirvanic state.

One of the last bastions of serenity is yoga. Whether it’s Hatha, Vinyasa, Ashtanga, Iyengar or Kundalini, right from the get-go yoga is a real eye-opener, providing plenty of opportunities to execute physical and mental twists, all leading to personal growth. Yep. It’s all about self-reflection, self-empowerment and self-discovery in positive surroundings, making for a peaceful environment. Until new, stressed out people visit, that is.

Our Generation Y-ME guest seems much too young to have accumulated that much stress and unfettered tension in such a short period of time. It took me at least 15 years of motherhood, unsympathetic credit card companies and an even less sympathetic metabolism to amass the boatload of irritation I brought to my first yoga class.

She snaps out her mat as though it has attempted to exact bodily harm upon her, plopping down with an irritated sigh. We grizzled veterans wear Mona Lisa smiles as we continue breathing in with practiced rhythms, breathing out with good intentions. Our peaceful pond is experiencing a few rough ripples, but we’ve been here before.

As we go through our warm-ups we achieve a glow better than even an energy bill credit can provide. Despite our collective feel-good vibe, our visitor provides spirited commentary during the teachings, which is not all that usual in yoga, but then again, it’s not completely unusual either.

As a class we experience increasing centeredness subsequent to our various postures, poses and positioning, working our way toward my hands down favorite pose, Savasana, also known as corpse pose.

This is when we will be guided through our final breathing segment by our instructor, culminating in nearly eight blessed minutes of deep relaxation. I live for this state of mind. I breathe for this state of mind. I yearn for this state of mind.

There we all are in gentle repose, calmly listening to our teacher’s melodic voice intoning gentle instructions. “Lightly tense your hands, relax, go with the breath, let the floor take the rest of your tension,” when suddenly out of nowhere – okay, actually out of the mouth of the newbie – comes the jack-hammered question: “Can you turn the heater up?”

I jump up so far that, for a second, I am convinced I have achieved a spiritual state that has gifted me with levitational abilities. I can feel the whole room simultaneously lose our beloved deep relaxation as we now struggle to achieve any sort of non-agitated state that doesn’t even have to begin with the letter “r.”

Ah, the young of heart and heat. It is a weekday morning, so the group is primarily over the age of thirty, forty, (do I hear fifty?) and female. There is general, unspoken consensus that there is no such thing as a room too cool for exercise, even during the cool down phase of our session.

You can bet when the room temperature finally dips below seventy degrees we’re all feeling relieved that we will not have to strip down to our practical Hanes underwear in order to achieve Celsius comfort.

Nevertheless, our teacher calmly walks over to the central heat and boots it up, as though this was part of the routine.

In the last few minutes of our class we manage to gain back dually acceptable levels of serenity and temperature. Everyone is kind and understanding, refraining from comment and we end as always, feeling better than when we came in.

Placing our hands in prayer position over our hearts, sitting in a comfortable lotus position we silently give thanks for the accumulated yogic wisdom we’ve netted since we first skidded in, our bodies fairly screaming, “Serenity now!”