I received a letter in the (real) mail addressed to me today. The return
address read “NBL National Benefit Life Insurance Company.” I didn’t hurry
to open it. Just another one of those useless pieces of mail that I feel I
have an obligation to look at before tossing it in the trash can. I mean,
why should I have life insurance? I die, that’s it. _I_ won’t be getting
anything out of it. Why should anyone else?

When I was looking around for something to keep me from doing homework a
couple hours later, I reached down and opened the envelope.

“Dear Parent:” it read. I’m not a parent, so I’m not sure why it was
addressed to me. But it talked about me as if my parents should be
concerned. It talked about a policy they should have on me (why, I haven’t
figured out quite yet) and a bunch of stuff I didn’t really understand. Then
is said, “For only $25 a year you get all of the above. This policy provides
coverage anywhere in the world – 365 days…” Now why wouldn’t it be 365
days? Do some coverage plans not cover you if you die on a Thursday? And is
leap year included in this one? It went on to say that this policy provides
coverage even if my parents’ kid:

Leaves School Sky Dives Drives a Motorcycle
Flies a Plane Scuba Dives Enters the Military
Contracts a Dread Disease

I laughed because my mom wouldn’t let my sister’s boyfriend give me a sky
diving trip for my birthday (he may have been hoping my chute wouldn’t open).
She said I couldn’t go jumping out of airplanes until I was paying my own
insurance. I’m trying to figure that one out as well. If I jump out of a
perfectly good airplane for no particular reason and my parachute forgets to
open, life insurance isn’t really going to be the biggest thing on my mind.
I mean, if I’m dead, what should anyone care if I’ve got insurance or not?

In any case, I wouldn’t mind doing any of those, besides Contracting a Dread
Disease (or joining the military. Hmm.. maybe I shouldn’t equate the two
like that). I wonder if that makes me a high risk candidate?

In other news, our once blue house got painted “taupe” today. It’s just
kinda tan really. Looks okay.