Wednesday, December 30
What an alliance!
Apparently, this has caught the attention of more than a few people, because I've also heard rumors (if you can call Mom's letters and Jenni's information rumors) that there's an alliance forming to help stop this. The really funny thing is who's joined this alliance.
Of course the religious groups of all stripes--Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddist, shinto, etc.--are against it. Well, the Mormons and Muslims aren't against all of it, obviously, but they're against most of it.
No, the interesting thing is that the gay rights groups--all of them--are against it, for various reasons. According to Jenni, who's got a really good ear for this sort of stuff, the gays are afraid that this will make a mockery of the institute of marriage. They're joining in with the Christians, Muslims, and Orthodox Jews (who, ironically, said that gay marriage would make a mockery of the institute of marriage) in an attempt to buy off enough politicians to put up an effective opposition.
I suppose it's not such a surprise--when the gay lobby was working to get the civil unions recognized as marriage in the eyes of society, they swore to oppose the slippery slope that the evangelical women's clubs claimed that gay marriage would send us all sliding down. They even went so far as to throw NAMBLA out on its ass--even called on the president to fire his safe schools czar as a member of his cabinet because a member of NAMBLA, open or otherwise, could not help make schools safe.
Mom called it working with the lesser evil to stave off the greater. Jenni's been laughing her fool head off since I showed her Mom's letter.
Hypocrisy really does know no bounds. For once, I'm glad I'm a C.P.A. Otherwise I doubt I could resist pointing that out to Mom and laughing in her face.
Sunday, December 20
Those poor, poor wives.
About two weeks after the government's medical care plan was killed by new legislation, the nation found out why the evangelical women's clubs were so hot on getting it repealed that they were willing to finally play the game like the rest of us.
The one good thing about the government plan was that it required that everyone receive equal (though really poor) access to waiting lines to get treatments (unless you were dying). That was what those rancid, bitter, nasty tempered, hideous, bitches wanted to change: that everyone was treated equally (badly) under the government plan.
Yeah, they didn't like that they had to wait in line with those whose lifestyles they didn't approve of. Like those nasty whores (that help preserve their sexless marriages), those worthless drug users (who work harder to support their habits than the evangelical women do to support their own families), or those evil murderers (like yours truly).
I don't know how they did it, but the evangelical women's organizations--the Christian, Muslim, and Judaic clubs that banded together in order to do what they saw as our shared God's will--managed to get legislation rammed through that didn't show up on the political market radar until after it was passed. That legislation states that those who could pose a danger of any type, bodily, mentally, or spiritually, to the helpless, good people of the nation may not visit doctors' offices or hospitals. And yes, they even managed to get a list of those they want to discriminate against worked into the legislation. On that list are those like me, who they think pose a risk to their lives; drug users, who might be on something that makes them dangerous, or carrying a communicable disease like AIDS; prostitutes who might be carrying a communicable disease or might teach their daughters that being a sexless manequin married to a man to provide for them financially isn't their only option; or those who work in that den of iniquity that is political bribery--no one but their own, admittedly sizable, subset of the population are eligible for medical care. At all.
The national sex workers' union, lead by our local chapter (269), has declared a strike. Husbands are going to have to start sleeping with their wives, if they want sex--and since most (but not all) of Jenni's old customers were married to members of the evangelical women's clubs, that means the ones pushing the prostitutes to strike are going to be the ones who have to put out.
Those who use various recreational pharmaceuticals are also cutting back and working harder, to come up with money to apply pressure in a different area: the political options market, and bribe-able politicians and lobbyists. Those who work in that market, like my boyfriend does, are teaming up with the self-medicators to apply the pressure, since they know where the money would do the most good.
I'm sure that, if C.P.A.s could get along well enough to have a union, we'd likely be using our own unique talents to apply pressure directly to the evangelical sisterhood of self-righteous thugs. As it is, I don't doubt that agencies that don't have their own private hospitals and physicians likely are doing such on their own, without organization.
In any case, even though Jenni's retired and no longer a card carrying member of the union, she is pretty active in the management and organization of our local chapter. She's one of the ones that had a hand in the planning stages of the strike, and is working hard to keep all of the local girls in line. Thank God her husband is better at listening to her and reading the market trends than my boyfriend--between his job and her new one, they're keeping the girls striking in their apartments and fed, even if the girls are getting behind on some of their less essential bills.
Speaking of relative levels of success in the market...do you think my boyfriend would notice if I bought cheap booze and put it in the bottle he drank the last of the expensive scotch from? I'm tired of him guzzling my good stuff.
Tuesday, December 15
Sorry I've been gone. But I'm back now.
And what a homecoming. I unlock my apartment's door and turn on the light to find my boyfriend, face down and sobbing on my couch, a half-empty bottle of really expensive Scotch (which had been full when I left) on the coffee table next to him, and an empty glass on its side on the hand-knotted wool Persian rug he'd given me for Christmas two years ago.
Lucky for him, the glass hadn't had anything in it when it'd hit my rug.
So, instead of getting to kick my shoes off and relax after a job well done (and I had nothing to do with the Peruvian president's recent demise with a cocktail fork stuck in his--well, anyway, I had nothing to do with it), I had to comfort my day-trader boyfriend for a really stupid bet.
I told him to listen to my sister when she said it wasn't going to happen, but nooo, Mr. I'm-the-professional-political-options-market-guru thought he knew which way the market would flip.
I don't know how much money he put into it (though I have my dark suspicions), but he basically bet on the $1.50 per pack marijuana cigarette tax going through. Which meant he bet against the pot-smokers managing to get off the couch and get active in the system long enough to buy enough lobbyists and politicians off to defeat the measure.
Jenni told him that pot smokers don't want to work any more than they have to to support their habit. She told him that the extra tax would require them to either work more or smoke less, and keep working more or smoking less for a long period. She told him that they'd be willing to work more now, in the short term, so that they could return to their normal habits in the long term. She told him that there was no way that tax would pass.
Now all that's left is for him to tell me how much money he's lost. Thank God I keep my finances separate from his, or (given his behavior last night) Mom might be going short this month to make the minimum required payments on Dad's debt, with no way for her to make the regular one.
Thursday, November 26
Why couldn’t they have accomplished this FIVE YEARS ago?!
But once they have their insurance, as long as they pay for it and don’t need more than the lifetime limit of a few million dollars, they won’t cut someone off in what’s supposed to be the last six months of their lives, saying that it’s the last six months that are the most expensive, and won’t be covered.
Ten years ago, Dad retired from the engineering firm he’d spent thirty-five years working for. Nice pension, great lifetime benefits. Nine years ago, congress snuck socialized medicine in on us, despite more than two-thirds of us not wanting it. Six months later, Dad’s benefits were dropped—with the government ramming through new regulations on who was to be covered, for what, and how much, insurance costs skyrocketed for everyone not on the “public option.” And the company—well, to be fair, every company that offered health benefits, not just Dad’s—dropped all health insurance on all but upper management. First to go were retirees.
Seven years ago, a PSA screening came back looking…iffy. It took another year to get an appointment to get his prostate actually checked, and another eight months to get the lump biopsied. By then, it was too late. The cancer had metastasized, and Dad was told that he had another four to six months to live. By one doctor. Without the option of going for a second opinion in the time he had. And, of course, the drugs to possibly extend his life for long enough to go get a second opinion were too expensive. Not cost effective. In fact, since Dad only had another six months to live, he wasn’t cost effective, either, and the “public option” plan demonstrated another option that the government had: to refuse insurance to those who aren’t contributing members of the workforce anymore.
Dad spent the next two years in the hospital. Not six months. Two years. Dying. In agony. Because his prostate cancer wasn’t caught early enough to stop. Because of the rationed medical care that the “public option” forced on him.
Without any insurance, government or otherwise. And, without insurance, the hospital refused to do more than the bare minimum. Which still put us so deeply in debt that we still can’t see daylight.
Before he died, Dad called Jenni and me to speak to him. He spoke to each of us alone for a few minutes, Jenni first. I don’t know what he said to her, but she got a new job the next day, one that paid far better than her job as a kindergarten teacher.
Me, he told exactly how much Mom was in debt. And told me that, should she refuse or be unable to pay for the bills that the government, in its infinite wisdom, forced us to run up (since we obviously didn’t want to put Dad down like a sick pet), that same government would put Mom in prison. For credit fraud. For running up bills that she obviously didn’t intend to pay. The fact that she couldn’t pay the bills didn’t come into consideration any more than someone who can’t pay their taxes gets special treatment—assuming they’re not a member of the president’s cabinet, at least.
He also told me that he knew that, with my degree, and with my moral flexibility, there was a job that paid well enough that I could help keep Mom out of prison. No, it wasn’t what I wanted to do. But think of the pay! And think of Mom! And it was his dying wish!
What the fuck was I supposed to do?
So, thanks to the stupid socialized medicine plan—which had failed everywhere else before it was instituted here—Dad spent two years dying when the cancer could have been caught two years sooner than it was and successfully (and relatively cheaply) driven into remission. Thanks to Dad’s final bills, I am a) a highly-trained, very highly-paid professional assassin, and b) a highly-trained, very highly-paid professional assassin that drives a beige, 1982 Toyota Corolla. One with an odometer that broke at the 350,000 mile mark two years ago.
Stupid fucking hypocritical holier-than-thou bear-trap-twatted failed whores could have had this shit stopped five years ago, if they’d been willing to use the new laws and new markets the way everyone else that wants something done does. Oh, well. At least the fines I pay every year for “insufficient coverage” will go away. Maybe my health insurance plan costs will drop, too.
The more my costs drop, the quicker I can help Mom get Dad’s final bills paid off, and the sooner I get to go look for work in the field I trained for, instead of this one.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Saturday, November 21
My day sucked, thanks. And yours?
Um. Hi. My name is Molly. I haven’t really done this before, but my big sis is kinda curious about my life. So. My blog.
I’m a CPA. No, not the number-crunching kind. The other kind. The kind that sneaks up behind you and caps your ass with a P22. (And guys? Yeah, you jerks that I work with. I AM NOT RAMBO. Nor do I have penis issues. If I need a bigger gun, the job’s gone south.) Yeah, that kind. Certified Public Assassin. Wanna see my card?
So. At Jenni’s request, here’s my life. Where do I start? Guess I’ll start with today.
My partner, Rob, was sick. Out with the Swine Flu, he says. I think it’s far more likely that his “flu-like symptoms” were caused by hanging out with Jim Beam than his family at Thanksgiving (which happens to be next week, but hey, some celebrate early). The job was kinda time-sensitive, this time. Client even paid extra to have it done this close to the holiday.
In any case, since the job was time-sensitive, and since my partner (the jackass) was hung-over—oops, I mean sick, really—I was stuck doing it myself.
Naturally, the mark was HUGE. Easily a foot taller, and probably at least a hundred, hundred and fifty pounds heavier.
So, I do my little act, like I’ve been sent from his boss to collect a necessary, off-the-books update on the project he’s currently working on while everyone else is at lunch, step around behind him while he pulls up the files on his computer, screw the silencer on my Walther, and pop him behind the ear. And waited for his sphincters to loose. And waited. And waited some more.
I finally gave up, hoisting the meatsack up into a fireman’s carry. In my suit. And heels. And I totter off, praying that everyone stays gone just long enough for me to get into the back stairwell.
My luck lasted that long. And long enough for me to rest part of the mark’s weight on the railing. And about halfway down from the tenth floor to the basement and its dumpsters.
And then, Mr. Dead Weight voided. All down my right side, front, back, and sleeve.
So, I cussed a little, checked my P22 in my shoulder holster, and my P99 in my other hideout (not all of my colleagues work for the same company, and sometimes, business is cut-throat. Literally). Neither gun was covered in effluvia, so I carefully tottered my way down the rest of the stairs, and heaved the corpse into the dumpster. They’ll likely find it tomorrow. And his family, if he has one, can have the funeral before Thanksgiving. They can even have an open casket—it’s why I do my jobs with a .22.
Shit. I just realized I left my grocery list in my suit jacket that I tossed with the twerp that shat all over me. And that letter from Mom I still had to answer (sorry, Mom).
Damn it. This day cannot get better.
At least my kitty loves me.