Death Panel For Teeth

So we are having a bad month here at Casa Lemur-Ferret. My poor Ferret has apparently neglected her flossing. And also her sacrifices to the gods of Teeth and Health Care.

We've been told she has some fairly heinous stuff going on in her mouth- terms like "root canal" and "extraction" were tossed around. Shit, I want a Vicodin just thinking about it.

She woke up feeling like she'd brushed her teeth with battery acid and hot barbed wire, so we went to the local dentist, where we spent 3 hours sitting around, filling out forms, and in Ferret's case being probed and ending up 2 hours late to work.

And at the end of this delightful outing was the educational part. I learned that if one does not, as I previously did, have the privilege of being insured, then dental work costs one, as Bradley Nowell once so poetically wrote, "un chingo de dinero". (Yes, I did just bend over backward to work in a Sublime reference. There're worse crimes.)

Does dental care really have to be this expensive? Do enamel, root canals, and WaterPiks require this much overhead? I really don't know. I don't have a reason to care, unless I suddenly remember where I misplaced that extra several thousand dollars.

Our other choice is to call in a same-day-only appointment, radio-contest style, to the county dental clinic. The care is much less expensive, but they open at 8 and are booked by 8:30. And they aren't open on weekends, which seems like poor planning to me- most of their patients would be working, yes? So why close on the days people are most likely to be off?

The sad thing is I do realize we're lucky to have that option at all. If we were in a more rural area, I doubt we'd have any other choice than to pay the huge costs of "normal" dental offices. And if there was no way we could afford that, at all? (Which really, we could not have. Just so you know.) Then what? Live with the pain? Grab some pliers and fix it ourselves? The fuck is this, medieval Europe? Are people going to start dying from an abscessed tooth because they can't afford to fix it?

And people are arguing against the government somehow getting everyone decent healthcare. WHY? Gods, why? I would give almost anything to not have to worry what will happen if she or I get really sick or hurt. I know it's crazy but I'd like to be able to go to the eye doctor without saving for 8 months, or the dentist without having to sell a kidney.

Thing is, I'm freaking out on behalf of my Ferret, who with a little luck just has to last the next few days, and we have some painkillers, thank Gaia- or else she couldn't manage to eat.

What happens to people who don't luck into county resources? They pay $300 a month for 36 months- or...? Or what? Or what??

From the Facebook Files

My friend said:

'The Vatican issues a prayer for Catholics to say before sex. Apparently shouting, "Oh God" at the end of sex isn't enough.'

September 2 at 10:32am · Comment · Like

Lemur:

Ooh, I know this one:
"Please god, forgive me for having sex with another willing adult and not letting the religious shame propagated by bitter celibate old white guys get the best of me. I know that God's plan does not involve humans having enjoyment not approved by aforementioned bitter old dudes. My bad. Amen."

That's it, right? I amaze me sometimes; it's like I'm psychic! LOL

What can I say? It was a really good moment. Also, I was funny. Go me.

Thoughts?

Lady-parts Surcharge

So I finally have teh Intarwebz in my house now! Hooray! I don't have to spend hours on end at the library. Not that the library is so bad, but you can't do No-Pants Tuesday Blogging there. They get really uptight about not wearing pants in the library.

But that's not what this is about. This is about my thoughts on auto mechanics. My brother-in-law is young and not always very bright, and in a move of stunning brilliance, he put diesel in my emphatically non-diesel-drinking gas tank. My reaction to that was almost reality-show worthy, lemme tell ya. I love my car, like really. love. my car. I panic whenever anything happens to it.

So I finally gave up on draining the tank at home and decided to take it to a mechanic. I picked some local numbers and started dialing. 3 mechanics told me 3 to 4 hundred dollars, which gee, just didn't sound right. One of them tried to tell me I "needed" a new fuel pump. Yeah, I didn't. Finally I got one guy to give me an estimate that wasn't off the charts, and the day ended happily.

But when I talked to my Ferret, I found myself wondering out loud if maybe these auto shops tack on a "vagina charge" of a couple hundred dollars when they talk to a woman on the phone. Cause, obviously, if a lady calls and doesn't have a man to do the work or at least make the call for her, she must be desperate. And have no way of knowing what auto work is supposed to cost! Or know anything about cars! Hey guys, we can charge this chick A THOUSAND DOLLARS AND THERE'S NOTHING SHE *slap*

Sorry. Uh. Yeah. So my point is, do they do that? Or do mechanic prices really vary that much? Shouldn't there be some kind of guide for people who don't know what work should cost, like the Kelly Blue Book for car repair? Tell you what- first person to create that website, gimme 10 percent of the net and we'll call it good. We could make a fortune!

...No, you can't talk to my husband about it.

Women Die, It's All Their Fault

So last night watching the news- with my mom, no less- I heard about the shooting at the gym in Collier county. Some nut opened fire on a bunch of women, posted about it in his blog for months beforehand, and I bet the media/cops will talk about how 'he was a nice clean-cut quiet guy' and 'nobody could have predicted this'.

And, I'm sure, something about how women rejecting him is the cause of all this. When has it become okay to kill someone because they won't date you? When the fuck has rejection become a normal cause for homicide, and has it always been the woman's fault?

If a woman were to do this, the media would be all over her, talking about how crazy she was. If a man does it, the read-between-the-lines consensus seems to be, "the women should have known he'd become violent, what with all those rejections, and thusly should have gone out with him so he wouldn't kill them."

I don't suppose it's worth it to point out that lots of people can't get a date/have a good relationship, and somehow they manage not to murder anyone.

I don't know. I really don't have any good words about this. I'm angry, and scared. Maybe all those shut-ins living on the Net have the right idea. Stay home, and your chances of being randomly killed by some misogynist bastard drop drastically.

Shakesville has a more coherent rundown.

I'll be in my bed, hiding under the covers. Yeah, that seems really good right now.