Where I Didn't See Myself in 2020

I was on Facebook, not really doing much except procrastinating, when I saw a meme that said something about "In 2015, whatever you saw yourself doing in 5 years, you got it wrong".   I know that's right, because back in 2015 if someone had said to me "Hey, in 2020 there's going to be this COVID-19 pandemic and you're going to feel like you're living in some hybrid version of The Twilight Zone and The Stand", I probably would have thought, yeah, right, whatever, whatever happens in 2020 it definitely won't be that.  Ha ha, ha ha, ha.  

I haven't been writing much (ok, I haven't written anything at all) because the situation we all find ourselves in still seems too incomprehensible to fully process and as soon as some little spark of inspiration would ignite in my brain and I'd prepare to sit down and write, another WTF? moment would present itself and poof, spark extinguished.   At first, the COVID-19 pandemic was scary but it was also a kind of edgy adventure, like going on a wild amusement park ride after being told that the park had badly flunked its last safety inspection.  It didn't matter if you were a Republican or a Democrat, you still weren't going to find any toilet paper or hand sanitizer at the grocery store.   Once I was sent home to telework, like a lot of other people, I settled in to my new cubicle which is also my kitchen table,  I swapped Office Pet stories and memes about the differences between working at home and working at work with my besties on Messenger, and mentally calculated if my savings in gasoline costs would be enough to splurge on a new pair of birding binoculars.   

And then the months went by and it just kept being weird, but I didn't realize just how weird it was because as an introvert I had been doing mainly three things since March: teleworking, eating too much junk food, and birding (nothing, not even a pandemic, stops birders from birding) and then it was time to take the College Student back to school.  She'd been home in the spring doing a semester-long co-op, so she was more than ready to fly out of the nest again (note to college freshmen parents enjoying an empty nest: sometimes they do come back) and there is just something really strange and slightly unsettling about walking around a college campus seeing people move into their dorms while wearing masks.  Moving into a dorm in mid-August: Normal.  Moving into a dorm in mid-August while wearing a mask: Not normal (and, when the dorm room is on the 4th floor and there is no elevator, it's also somewhat uncomfortable).  

Actually, that wasn't the first strange thing.  The first strange thing was driving by the high school in early August and not seeing the marching band practice.  If you are driving by a high school in Texas in the early evening in August and there is no marching band out practicing, something is definitely off.  

The second strange thing was entering the land of Not-Texas on our college-bound long-distance road trip and stopping at a fast food place to eat, only to enter, observe lots of people not wearing masks, and feeling overwhelmed by (1) the number of people all in one place; and (2) the number of people all in one place not wearing masks.  We grabbed our order and fled outside.  Seeing the signs asking people to wear masks and not to come inside if you thought you were ill because "of the current pandemic" 500 miles from home really made the dysfunctionality of 2020 real: here is evidence that this is really happening EVERYWHERE.  

The strangest thing, however, was finding out what the school's "quarantine plan" was. The College Student elected to live on campus again, and so had to be tested for COVID-19 as part of the move-in process.  If you tested positive, you would be temporarily moved to the "quarantine/isolation dorm".  Friends told me that at their kid's school, if you tested positive you had to go home.  This is what I never would have guessed about 2020:  In 2020, if you have a kid who is going to college, you better find out what happens if they test positive to COVID-19.  Is there a quarantine dorm?  Do they have to come home? One site on Facebook advised packing a "quarantine bag" in case your student needed to relocate quickly.  When The College Student was looking at colleges way back in 2017-2018,  that wasn't even something you'd ask.  

When I came home, it was time for the Son of Never Stops Eating to start his senior year of high school.  This is the final strange thing:  The Son of Never Stops Eating misses school.  Since kindergarten, he has been Mr. No School.  But when school went virtual, he realized he did actually miss school.  Now he is Mr. I Can't Wait to Go Back To School.  He's ready for this to end, he tells me every day.  He's done with it, finished.  I suspect that he is not alone in that.  

Guest Blogger: Office Dog!

AAARRRROOOO Everyone!

This is Office Dog aka Cocoa The Mutt, reporting on life during COVID-19.  A few months ago, I got quite the surprise when my human came home with a bunch of three ring binders in a box, a large gray rectangle, and a small black rectangle.  She put them on the table and announced that she would be working from home for a few weeks, and- the best surprise EVER- that I could be her office dog!

This was really EXCITING news.  A promotion! As a senior citizen dog, I feel like I have a lot of wisdom and insight to offer.  I wasn't sure what my responsibilities would be, but I was definitely hoping that a pay increase in the form of MORE TREATS would be involved! I knew that there was a toilet paper shortage, which seemed to matter to the humans, but I was concerned about cheese and treats.

The next morning, the human woke up and sat at the kitchen table with the large gray rectangle and the small black rectangle and started working.  After awhile, she got frustrated with something she called "the VPN".  After some salty language directed at the defenseless large gray rectangle, she decided that it would be a good time to take a WALK!  This Office Dog gig was off to a great start!  It seemed that she did a lot of talking into the small black rectangle, and I was hoping that I could maybe also talk into the small black rectangle, but that didn't seem to be happening.

I've been a Family Dog for a long time,  and most mornings my human would get up and leave the house after eating her English muffin and drinking a cup of coffee.  Then she would disappear for several hours in the big machine that takes you to "THE VET", and then magically return at night. Now I would get to see what she did all day! This was exciting, and I was looking forward to sharing this information with the cats down the street, who seem to think that they know everything and that the world would be a better place if they were in charge.   After the first day, however, I started to realize that what my human does all day is talk into the small black rectangle and type on the large gray rectangle and sometimes say things like "oh, s**t", or "SERIOUSLY?" or "I thought we already fixed that!" or "this Excel spreadsheet is driving me nuts!".  

It's hard for Office Dog to tell time; it's either eating time or not eating time.  However, after several eating times, it seemed like it had been a lot longer than "a few weeks".  Sometimes the humans would talk about going to the store, and wearing a mask, and how they were getting "several days to the gallon" in the VET-MOBILE , and the younger human started doing school online, which was also something new and different.  I was sometimes allowed to participate in school, which was FUN! I'm still not allowed to talk on the little black rectangle, which seems wrong because sometimes I feel like I could offer some valuable insight.  For example, one day the human was talking about "not allowing a dog park in the five year development plan", and I wanted to go AARRRROOOOOO! UNFAIR! But it is really nice having all the humans home.  It turns out I didn't need to be worried about a treat shortage, because I get a lot of those.

Unfortunately, I think that extra treat thing may be about to come to an end.  The other day I heard the human say to one of the other humans that "Office Dog is looking a little chunky", and the other human sighed and said "yeah, she needs to lose a few pounds", and I just knew then that no matter how many times I went and sat by the refrigerator while looking cute, there would be fewer treats.  AARRRRROOOOOOOOO!  However, I still get plenty of scratches behind the ears, and I'm always a "good dog" except when I do this thing where I bark to come inside and then right away, I bark to go back outside, in which case, the humans will sound annoyed and say "Inside or outside, pick one!" But I like them both! Inside is air-conditioned, and outside has lots of great smells.  How can you make a choice like that?

As Office Dog, I have experienced a lot of personal growth during this quarantine.  For example, I have attended several mandatory workplace trainings, so I now know how to prevent sexual harassment and how to be secure while taking a work trip or using "the network".   I also know that if you want to have a REALLY productive day you should drink a LOT of coffee. I've also learned that when a lot of people are on a WebEx meeting and people don't use the MUTE function it can be loud and difficult to understand the presenter.   I just wish that my human would just once NOT use the MUTE function on the little black rectangle so that I can contribute  my Office Dog wisdom.  I also get a lot of WALKS! with all the humans home; the only improvement on that would be if I were allowed to investigate the bunnies that live in my yard, but I'm not.  I am supposed to LEAVE THOSE RABBITS ALONE!

It looks like my Office Dog gig is going to continue, at least part-time.  I'm happy about that, I like being an Office Dog.  I liked going to school, too- but I think that the younger human is hoping that in the fall, he can go back to actual school because he misses his friends.  It's hard not to be able to see your friends.  However,  I must close my report now because it is getting close to eating time, and I need to go into the kitchen and look sad so someone will give me some cheese.

Signed, OFFICE DOG

On Kindness

The Mom of No has been busy these past few weeks- I've been going on road trips through fly-over states delivering the College Student back to her university (once the luggage was dropped on the dorm room floor, I was bid farewell; sniff sob sniff.  Don't feel too badly for me; I did what every dismissed parent of a college sophomore does on move-in day: I found a park and went birding), working, reading books, hanging out on the nature trail, and getting the Son of Never Stops Eating acclimated to a new campus for his junior year.  I've also been doing some deep thinking- road trips tend to do that to me. Something about watching those mile markers go by on the interstate brings out the philosopher in me.

I should probably warn you up front that any time I do deep road trip thinking I tend to get myself into trouble, at least with people who don't know me well, and sometimes with people who do, and sometimes I make comments about politics or uncomfortable social issues, and if that's just not your thing at the moment then go no further.  Ok, that's the disclaimer. Onward.

Our local school district is in the midst of something they're calling a Kindness Initiative. Now, I don't want anyone to interpret anything I say as meaning that people should just be jerks to each other, because I definitely don't think that. However, we're in year 2 of the Kindness Initiative, and as far as I can tell, The Son of Never Stops Eating has made exactly zero actual friends (and by friends I mean kids he hangs out with outside of school) from the general ed student population, so the Special Needs Mom in me doesn't have 100% buy-in on the Kindness initiative. I'm about to reach the big 5-0 and suffering from a heavy dose of cynicism mixed in with hot flashes and panic about my golden years caused by a sudden increase in e-mails asking me if I've thought about saving for retirement, so take that into consideration when you judge me for that last statement.

I don't want to criticize an entity for trying to be kinder. That's almost like judging baby animals for not being cute enough.  But "kindness" seems to be the cool word of the year.  When I hear it, I wonder if kindness initiatives will lead to authentic inclusion, or if it will just lead to people being nice to my son because they feel like they're required to do it, or because it makes them feel better about themselves, or so they can include their kindness activities on a scholarship essay.  When I think like this, my first instinct is to feel like I'm being ungrateful.  A little kindness is better than no kindness.  Then I wonder how those of us raising special needs kids got so conditioned to accept so little; the message is that we should be happy about the lonely boy who had the celebrity sit and have lunch with him, or the special-needs girl who made the cheerleading squad, and not ask why these kinds of events are still big news.

I've been thinking of kindness as a spectrum: momentary kindness, which is when you buy someone a latte or help them carry their groceries to their car and then you never see them again (extra points if you post about it on Facebook later), or hypocritical kindness, which is when someone posts a meme on Facebook about how we just need to be kind to each other and then their next post is a statement about how if illegal immigrant teenaged girls don't want to go without menstrual supplies they shouldn't come here in the first place, so the idea of kindness is really more like "we should be kind to people who have the same color skin and go to the same churches and live in the same neighborhoods and who don't stir the pot with that LGBTQ nonsense and everyone else can go stick it".

I suspect that at least some calls for kindness are essentially a way of saying "the world is just f****d up beyond all belief and I want to do or say something but I don't know what I can say that won't piss someone off on my friends list or one of my relatives but how can you argue with kindness?".  As a former adolescent, my own life would probably have been considerably easier if certain of my peers had been less unkind, so once again- I'm not advocating being mean, or cruel, or even just not doing anything. I'm not anti-kindness. However, human beings seem to want simple solutions to complex problem- and kindness isn't going to solve very many of the problems we're facing unless we are ready to go for sacrificial kindness- in which we are willing to give up something a lot more than a few moments of time, a few dollars, or a smile.  Kindness is a way of being, but it isn't exclusive (kids can be smart and good athletes and kind, you don't have to pick one) and it isn't a solution to most of our deep-rooted problems.

Perhaps I would feel better about kindness as a popular concept if it generated the sort of thinking that led to real change- for example, is a health care system that requires sick people to ask for funding by crowdsourcing really kind? Is a society kind when its children go to schools with inadequate funding and leaky ceilings and poor ventilation?  Is it kind to present choices as "either/or" when if we wanted to, we have the resources to do both? We want each other to be kind, but it doesn't seem to be a criterion we use as a basis for deciding who to cast ballots for.

Because I am not a complete cynic (yet), I also believe in genuine kindness- people for whom this characteristic is so innate, everything they do seems to have kindness and love for other people and their communities embedded in it. I am not this person, but I know people who are, and I admire them for it.  I suppose we can all strive to be a little kinder, and make the world a little bit better (I like to think that every piece of trash I pick up on the trail is generating positive vibes in the world); kindness is not a solution in itself to all our problems, but it is a small part of getting to those solutions.

Late Summer Slump

Mom, the Son of Never Stops Eating sighed a few days ago, I'm tired of being hot.  I wish it were October already.  I'm done with summer.

I feel you, kid. I really do.  The Mom of No likes the heat- most of the time.  In mid-summer, I can walk down the trails and see dragonflies everywhere, which makes being drenched in sweat worthwhile.  But in late September, it seems like the heat should go, already.  Rain has been scarce and everything is dry and brown, and the dragonflies have left (mostly), except for a few elderly scarred stragglers and a bunch of common green darners.  As I walk down the trail, grasshoppers fly everywhere, announcing my arrival to anything that happens to be lurking around.  A stealthy approach is just not possible.  Thanks for nothing, grasshoppers.

I'm in a prolonged late summer slump, brought on only partially by the paucity of observations on my favorite trail;  it seems like this year there is less to see, although that could be because I've forgotten that it is like this every year, or that this year it's particularly parched, or that I've been reading about the decline of birds and insects and seeing only grasshoppers instead of common buckeyes and Gulf fritillaries and Queen butterflies is reinforcing what I've read.  I am fascinated with the intricate beauty of butterflies and dragonflies; a future world in which small children will never see a dragonfly and then think of winged fairies is not something I really want to consider.

Soon enough, the Mom of No will celebrate that half-century milestone birthday, and the feeling is strong that if I want to do something, now is probably a good time to do it.  However, the practical side of me then asserts itself to state that most of what I really want to do involves a lot of time or a lot of money (or both), so there's the realization that maybe I should pare down the list just a bit.  One of my dream bucket list items is get the Observation of the Day on iNaturalist; that could be within the realm of possibility.  I'll just have to keep on hiking- a task I am willing to continue.

It's sad to see the trash people leave on the trail- either purposefully, like a plastic soft drink bottle sticking up from the mud in a marshy area, or unwittingly, like a balloon that has probably floated in from some celebration elsewhere and now lays forgotten by the original celebrants a few feet off of the trail. The balloon's bright colors contrast with the brown and faded green and dull yellows of the grass and leaves, marking it as painfully out of place.  I leave the trail and walk the few feet needed to retrieve the balloon, fold it up, and stick it in my field bag for dumpster disposal later.  As I walk back to the trail, the grasshoppers leap before me.  I have no way to reach the plastic soft drink bottle, so it must stay for the time being.

I've been advised that shortly I am to temporarily lose access to my favorite trail due to some infrastructure work; the area will be closed off to the public for safety reasons.  I try to view this as an opportunity- I am fortunate to live in an area with other trails, so there is some exploring to be done.  However, I have bonded with this trail; I've seen it lush with wildflowers and butterflies and gem-like variegated meadowhawks in spring and fall; I've seen it newly emerged from flooding; I've seen great blue herons walking on the iced-over marsh during a deep winter freeze.  I stood alone on that day, hearing only my breathing, watching the herons walk confidently on the thin ice, knowing that I was watching something beautiful.  I've seen my offspring stare, gape-mouthed, at egrets and herons and once, the possibility of a beaver swimming across the marsh.  I know I'll be back, but it will not be easy to wait.

Enough of this funk, I tell myself.  The winter birds are on their way, as is (hopefully) some cooler weather.  I sit at a table at one of the wildlife blinds, drinking some water (hydration is important) and wiping off sweat from my forehead with a bandanna (always carry a bandanna in your field bag).  I look over at the green reeds- almost the only thing bright green in this dry landscape- and when my eyes adjust I see a small green tree frog, curled up on a green reed, almost perfectly blending in.  Then I see another, and another, and soon I realize that the reeds are full of green tree frogs.  It is just what I needed; my slump is not cured, but for a moment it is forgotten.

Lunch Treat

Earlier this afternoon, the Son of Never Stops Eating did something I honestly didn't see coming: he took me out to lunch after church.

You don't have to, I told him.  We have plenty of food at home.  But he had his heart set on chicken and fries, and he was willing- insistent, actually- to pay for it with his snow cone stand job earnings, so after some discussion about who had the best chicken tenders and fries, we set off for the local Whataburger and enjoyed a delicious lunch.  Today is his last day of work since school is starting this week, and he told me he was going to miss his job and his paycheck and that he was going to stop buying Legos for awhile because he wanted to save his money (but I've heard that last one before, and then two weeks later he finds his newest heart's desire online, and that is the end of the saving money- so I'm dubious about the last part).

If a visitor from the future had appeared to me back in the mid 2000's and told me "In a few years, this kid who isn't talking to you and who doesn't seem interested in human interaction and who just wants to run around whenever you try to get him to participate in anything will be taking you out to lunch with money he earned at a part time job", I would have been convinced that this time traveler's brains were completely scrambled by whatever process had enabled him or her to venture back to the past, or that they had me confused with some other person, but I wouldn't have believed a word of any of it- which is likely a problem time travelers encounter on a regular basis.

This is the problem with autism: I usually have people make one of two assumptions about the Son of Never Stops Eating, when they find out he's on the spectrum.  I once tried to talk to a church youth counselor about the Son of Never Stops Eating participating in activities, and his concern was that I needed to be there so that I could toilet him and help him eat.  His impression (based on one encounter) was that people with autism were essentially helpless.   I also have people who will tell me not to worry about my son's future because he's probably a coding savant; he'll get a job at Microsoft, and them move to Seattle, where evidently he'll fit in just fine.  Neither of these things happen to be true here- the Son of Never Stops Eating is definitely capable of feeding himself (as I write this, he is feeding himself a huge piece of chocolate cake), and he has zero interest in coding.

These encounters usually end in me saying something like "not all kids with autism are similar, that's why it's referred to as a spectrum", and then the other person says something like "oh yeah, I think I've heard that before, so he's not like Temple Grandin? Because I watched that show on TV and it was really good".

In the recent past, one of my concerns about him was what would happen if he got a job and then his employer wanted him to wear khaki pants, or an itchy polo shirt?  At his current job he can wear shorts and a t-shirt, so it was a non-issue.  Since school starts Tuesday, I asked him what he is going to wear on his first day of school, and he responded with "the usual", which maybe because he is a teenage boy or maybe because he hates wearing pants and itchy shirts or maybe both is always going to be shorts and a t-shirt even if it's freezing (that's one of the things I'm always wondering: is this a teenage boy thing, or an autism thing, or a Generation Z thing, or am I just being an overthinking mother and it's not a thing at all?".  So then I asked him what he'd do if he got a job and had to wear clothes he didn't like.

He sighed deeply.  Mom, he says, I don't like itchy clothes for school but if I had to wear it for work, I would do it because I am getting paid at a job and I like money but school is just school.

I wanted to ask him if he was also willing to wear deodorant to work, because the last time we had a discussion about deodorant he was insistent that deodorant was for school days only, but some things I honestly just don't want to be aware of.

The entire time we were eating, The Son of Never Stops Eating's latest Lego creation, some V-wing or X wing or something like that space fighter, was sitting on the table next to his Whataburger box of chicken tenders, and at least twice someone stopped at our table to ask him- with apparent genuine interest- if he'd built it himself and how long it had taken (yes, and 2 hours).

Yep, back in 2009, when I was chasing the Son of Never Stops Eating around a baseball field, trying without any success to get him to at least look at me and maybe try swinging a bat, and he was running away from me with the speed of an Olympic sprinter, I never saw a day in which I'd be sitting at a Whataburger with him (and an intricate Lego creation he'd built) eating a meal he'd paid for with money he'd earned himself and having conversations about why it would be OK to wear itchy clothes to work (but definitely not school), whether Mr. Burns is more evil than Darth Vader, and how he might join the art club at school (but maybe not).

I saw a lot of possible futures, but not a single one looked like this.

A Teen and His Money

Several months ago, when the Son of Never Stops Eating was still in 10th grade, he was going on a field trip with his class.  As part of that excursion, they were going to stop and eat at a restaurant, and the instructions said to bring money for a lunch and tip.  The night before, I went searching for $10 to give him and came up with about $5 and a few stray pennies.

"I don't think this is going to be enough", I told him.  "Use your debit card and I'll pay you back".

About ten minutes after lunch the next day, he started texting me: MOM! Did you pay me back? MOM! I need money! MOM! Don't forget to pay me back! MOOOMMMMMMM  I want my MONEY MOM! Did you put $10 in my account yet? MOM I want my MONEY!

Then: Mom I love you Mom don't forget my money!

He was being really persistent, considering that the only money he had at the time was the allowance I was giving him, so technically he had loaned me my own money and was now demanding rapid reimbursement of money I'd given him in the first place even though I'd meant it to pay for hamster bedding and saving up for Legos, not for lunch- it was like dealing with a Vegas loan shark (not that I've had that experience first hand, but I can envision it) or the Mafia.

You should be happy he doesn't know about interest, a co-worker said.  He'd be charging you by the minute.  I was making a mental note to never borrow my own money from my son again, and was remembering the days long ago when I wondered if he'd ever be able to read or write well enough to get a point across.  Clearly, this educational milestone had been met.

A few weeks ago, he ordered, using money he'd made from a part-time summer job, his latest heart's desire: a Lego Star Wars X-wing or V-wing Darth Vader Super Fighting Rebel Warp Drive Fighter Jet (or something like that). He had ordered this, with my assistance (by which I mean he stood behind me and told me exactly what number the Lego set was from memory while I typed in the order) from a gargantuan online seller.  It was actually being shipped by a third-party, not the behemoth itself, a fact which really didn't register at the moment.  He ordered it using his debit card (side note: we won't be doing that anymore, so if you're tempted to message me that this was a bad idea, you don't need to) and immediately (and by immediately, what I really mean is "the nanosecond I pressed the order button") started pestering me about when this Super-V Wing Jet Nuclear Powered Jedi Fighter was going to arrive.  Patience, grasshopper, I advised him.  It's not like he doesn't have at least three huge tubs of Legos already.

It didn't arrive that day, or the next day, or the day after that, or even the week after that- it hadn't even shipped.  I tried to cancel the order, but was being ignored by the evil third-party seller, who had promised Legos but wasn't delivering.  Fortunately the debit card hadn't been charged but it could be, at any moment, so I had told the Son of Never Stops Eating that he couldn't spend that money on anything else just yet.  I needed the order cancelled, desperately, because the Son of Never Stops Eating was wanting his Legos, or permission to use his money, and  he was wanting them RIGHT NOW and by RIGHT NOW I mean that the kid was on summer break and he had plenty of time to text his mother about his desperate lack of a specific Lego construction kit.

MOM! I WANT MY LEGOS! Did you call? Mom don't forget to call! Mom, I NEED my X-Wing fighter! Mom, Don't forget I need my Legos MOM! MOM! MOOOOMMMMMM! I want my money!

MOM I love you MOM Did you cancel it yet? Don't forget MOM!

Please, I am begging you, I told the customer service representative from Gargantuan Seller.  My son is obsessed with these Legos and also with his money.  Please help me cancel the order so that he can order something else.  The customer service representative was efficient and merciful and was able to inform me that yes, the order was being cancelled and with that miraculous news, the Son of Never Stops Eating was once again free to spend his money on some other Lego set despite both the Father of No and I encouraging him to do something bold and new, like save his money or buy something else that isn't Legos.

In special education transition to adulthood meetings, the subject of handling and managing money often comes up as a needed skill.  The next time it does, I'll be able to say that while we don't have all the intricacies worked out of good money management skills, I think he gets that his money is his money- and once he learns about interest, I'll have to be sure to keep cash on hand so I won't need to borrow any of my own money to pay for field trip lunches. I'm fairly certain I won't be able to afford it.

Bureaucracy

You'd have to be a hermit who has been living in a cave for the last 100 years to not realize that one of the biggest issues in the United States is healthcare.  People have all kinds of pros and cons for wanting one solution or another; politicians running for office promise great solutions that will make everyone happy with either no intention of delivering on their promises or no plan for delivering on their promises, or both.  Usually one reason people trot out for not wanting any kind of single payer or universal healthcare is that they don't want to deal with the inefficient and heartless government bureaucracy.  Definitely, the private sector works like a well-oiled machine- and it's not confusing or complicated, and everyone knows exactly how much things are going to cost.  I can't imagine why anyone would want something different.

So someone in the Family of No needs oral surgery to extract some wisdom teeth.   The Mom of No has medical insurance and springs every pay period for the extra dental insurance because hey, four people, that's a lot of teeth- and the Mom of No had a root canal earlier this year, so the policy has already paid for itself, because those root canals are expensive (and painful). I should have done a better job of flossing in my youth; lesson learned.  So the oral surgeon's office is called, appointments are made, and of course then it comes time for the healthcare acquisition ritual known as "We Must Discuss Your Insurance Benefits Before Care Can Commence".

"Well", the benefits coordinator tells me, "Medical is your primary insurance, so we have to file with them first, but they're a non-participating provider. Your dental insurance should pay it but we can't submit the claim to them until your medical insurance denies it.  That will take several months, so in the meantime, you'll have to pay the balance and wait for the claim to be paid.  She makes it sound like having two policies is a huge imposition.  It's not my fault that's how my medical insurance is, I want to say.

Wait, what? That's not what the dental insurance benefits book says. I eyeball the clock, hoping that I'll have time to get some dragonfly hunting in before dinner.  I sense that yes, this is about to get complicated.

The benefits coordinator is unimpressed with my knowledge of my dental plan benefits.

Doesn't matter, she says. That's our policy.  Because you have two insurance plans.  We're only doing this as a favor to you.  Usually we just file one.  But the secondary insurance you have is easy to work with.  So lucky you.  But you still have to pay up front.

But my medical insurance won't even pay anything, I tell her.  It doesn't even cover dental procedures.  That's what the other policy is for.  That's not how they do it at our dentist's office. That's why I bought this policy.  So that I wouldn't have to pay the entire cost of stuff like this.

It doesn't work that way, she says.  That's how we do it. We don't care how they do it at your dentist's office.

So what do I have to pay? I ask her.  It's impossible to say without filing the claim, she says. It depends on how things are coded.  You might have to pay 30% of the extractions and 15% of the sedation.  Or, maybe it's 50% of the sedation and 35% of the extractions.  Plus, she mentions, there's another procedure that involves taking blood and putting it on the extraction site, and insurance doesn't cover that.   It depends on what your medical insurance pays.  Then there's your deductible.  But that's after we file the claim.  You have to pay the entire cost up front.  

So, I'm paying the oral surgeon more money than I'm supposed to pay for a procedure and no one can say how much it will cost because no one knows what the insurance companies will pay, and then I wait to hopefully get some money back at some undefined time in the future after the dueling insurance companies duke it out at some point in time that is convenient to them.  Absolutely makes sense.

So at this point I call the dental insurance company. The rep there tells me that contractually, they can't require me to pay the entire cost.  With some technical assistance from The College Student, I manage to get the surgeon's office, the insurance rep, and me on a three way call.  This turns out to be a bad idea;  almost immediately the benefits coordinator and the insurance rep start screaming at each other.  I look at the clock again.  I've been on the phone for nearly an hour.  I can't take it anymore.  I'm absolutely baffled.  I need nature.  If this were an old fashioned phone on one of those spiral cords I would bang it against the wall, but I don't want to break my mobile device so I settle for rolling my eyes and beating the palm of my hand against my forehead.

Nothing gets resolved.

So today I spent an hour of my life (and I'm about to turn 50, so the clock, it's a-ticking - every moment spent arguing about insurance is an hour less to spend in nature) on the phone trying to work out how much a wisdom tooth extraction will cost me, and I'm still confused. Why do we do this to ourselves?  We're a nation of smart, resourceful people.  Maybe one day we'll work it out;  maybe one day we'll get tired of jumping through hoops to get a few teeth extracted.