Thursday, September 14, 2006

Pitching Fits, Pitching Concepts

An unusual evening.

It started with a recording from the dental surgeon's office confirming that, as predicted, the insurance company won't cover the cost of the bone graft for my jaw. We'd expected that. Can't say we particularly like the idea, but hey, with that $18K bill from the hospital covered (albeit by a different insurance agency), perhaps we'd used up all the good karma, insurance-wise. I was a bit ticked off, though (yes, me: the one who hardly ever gets ticked off) when they said that I should come into their office so that they could tell me what the options would be for paying for this. Hadn't heard of this revolutionary technique called, I believe, 'writing it down and mailing it to us'. I suggested that this might be a Good Idea. We'll see what happens. Bureaucrats. Feh.

And then we went to an open house at the grade school that my daughter had attended. They'd added a wing (desperately needed), and we were curious about how it looked. Well, overall, not bad, especially for something designed by a committee -- a school board committee, at that. On the way home, though, the offspring muttered about how it was all very nice, and all, but it sure wasn't the school she remembered, and why'd they have to do that, anyway? And so on... We stopped at a store, and while my wife was inside, my daughter talked to me about kids who have to have everything, and not just everything, but the newest everything -- not just a portable music source, but an iPod, and not just an iPod, but the iPod Shuffle; not just a cell phone, but a Razr. I told her that some people define themselves by what they own, and that encouraging this was what advertising was all about -- if a cute boy uses it, then maybe he'll like me if I use it too; my music machine is twice as expensive as yours, therefore I am twice as cool as you. Though, when she mentioned how she'd like a new CD player, I thought that it seemed reasonable. We agreed that if she does well on this marking period, we'll get it.

An interesting evening. To round it off, a scary article, and an interesting picture.

2 comments:

Rach said...

Mine started early too with wanting THE in thing at the time. Last year Hailey wanted a Game Boy Advance for Christmas. We didn't cave, but this year she's getting one, and not because she's been asking none stop either, but because her interest has lasted a year.
A Razr for a child? Dh just got one! I'm still getting over the fact that kids as young as 7 and 8 are caring cell phones. It blows my mind!

As for the dentist's call. Yeah, what happened to sending the quote by mail. Sheesh! ;)

Cerulean Bill said...

I think what frosted me was her attitude, which came across as 'you're just another patient; this is just another denied claim'. Hey, a little sympathy here?