Well this is the question, isn't it? I hit the 45 year mark. Had no problem at the 40 year mark. Each decade - 20, 30, 40 - is more liberating. Less shit to make one self-conscious.
So what happened at 45?
Started off smoothly. Got a seemingly innocuous reminder to renew my term life insurance policy. It is the policy my excuse-for-an-ex-husband gets if I croak before the kids are self-sufficient or 19 years old (and we all know which one will come first). With my last child on the cusp of registering for selective service (a whole other posting forthcoming on this dandy topic), I have a year to go on my delightful post marital commitment. My intital thinking is .... 'screw it.' I am not going to pay for a policy for just one more year. But those pesky insurance agents have special ways to lure you in and get you thinking about reasons why you should 'up' for another 10 years of term insurance (an insurance policy where you are wagering that you WILL die before the policy expires). So yes, I caved and agreed to another 10 year policy after a compelling pitch that included a premium lower than my last one. One small catch. A little harmless...... PHYSICAL.
That is when it hit me - I am middle aged. No more policies with the simple one question - do you smoke? Now, the insurance company just wants to "check a few things," such as weight, cholesterol, family history.... Oh, and drug use.
Here is what went down with poor unsuspecting soul who showed up at my door to do the medical exam. I greet him (I am being generous about the greeting part) on crutches - the result of an unsuccessful attempt to trail run with my daughter five days earlier. Let's just say the cards were stacked against him because the exam could only be scheduled at 1:30 pm. This meant fasting all morning. I don't want to underplay the significance of this little scheduling fact. On a typical day where I am expected to be civil, I am transitioning between my second and third grande nonfat latte by this time of the day. 'Medical guy' is trying to draw blood and I am telling my kids - in what can only be described as a forceful way - to get the damn espresso going.
Other small indignities included getting weighed and then observing that he recorded a weight about 15 pounds below what the scale showed. I don't know which is more humiliating: knowing he did this and me not correcting him, or knowing he probably did this because, if he wrote my true weight, the exam would have ended right there.
And then there was the peeing in a cup... in my own bathroom The whole time I am going over in my mind whether I had eaten any poppy seeds or whether the controlled substances I had consumed after spraining my ankle (an event that transpired exactly two hours before I was supposed to don my "garb de academe" and watch the newest crew of unemployed college graduates - except those nursing students :) - pick up their diplomas) would show up in my pee after five days.
Sensing my increasing edginess, medical guy asked me if I was taking anything for the sprained ankle.... at all. I mentioned the obvious - Ibuprofen - and out of fear of my pee blabbing - a leftover painkiller from some previous injury of some other person. I explained nervously that I did it for my students, really. It was my bound duty to watch them "walk." (OK so there were not any of my actual students there. Infact I didn't know a single one of them. But they were technically students at my school.) I am waiting for the feds to pick me up.
More interesting was the smoking question. Have I ever smoked? I am thinking that this is a trick question. Who hasn't smoked something at some time, even if once? Maybe this is a way to make sure that no one ever gets the "preferred rate." I mention this brief period in Kenya, where I dabbled in Dunhills because I couldn't stand eating anymore frybread. He said something about not hearing me and marked "never." I guess smoking 25 years ago ends up being like the whole weight issue - an immediate "preferred rate" dealbreaker.
Welcome to my mid life crisis. At least that is what this year is stacking up to be. The most insane plan yet.... after going to school forever to become a "professor" (quotes are really important for this word cause the heart of being a professor is becoming exceedingly knowledgeable about one microscopic slice of irrelevant reality and, correspondingly, incapable of functioning anymore in the real world) my current plan is.... law school. Or a Harley. Comments?
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