It’s the beginning of November, right after Halloween, so I think it’s safe to say that it’s officially Christmas season. Bring on the red Starbucks cups!
I voted early today at a school two blocks from my apartment – a different school than the one on actual election day. No idea how that stuff works but bless the poll workers.
Usually you just walk in a side door to the gym but this year they had signs leading up and around and through a parking lot and then up some back stairs like some weird amalgam of the scene in Goodfellas where they take Henry Hill and his mistress through the kitchen of the Copa Cabana and Wile E. Coyote trying to trick the road runner into standing on a bullseye where an anvil can fall on him.
I kind of love the voting day pens with their half iPad signature safe / half ball point pen action. I was in and out faster than getting a Starbucks. Not sure I mentioned this but it’s Christmas season and the red cups should be coming out soon. I love the red Starbucks cups. They’re festive.
I snapped the pic above right as I left John Jay High School in Park Slope. I’m sort of scowling even though I didn’t mean to. Perhaps it’s just the manifestation of intense anxiety over this election, which a great deal of my friends are feeling. And I just said “Park Slope” so if you don’t know where we’re leaning, I don’t know what to tell you.
It also reminded me that a friend recently told me I should get Botox in my forehead. Maybe I should but I’m sure as hell not going to. Fuck that guy.
In other news, I finally signed up for health insurance through New York State of Health today after getting laid of from my job in June. “But Rob,” you’re saying, “how could you not have had health insurance for this long?”
I can explain.
About a month ago, I posted on Facebook that my crappy insurance didn’t cover my latest flu shot or COVID booster. I just figured, “okay, I have the knockoff insurance kind of like those sneakers with four stripes called Abibas that you get at a dollar store.”
Then I tried to make a doctor’s appointment. I went to the “insurance” company’s website to try to find a doctor. I tried to log in and I couldn’t. I called the help line only to be told that this company, First Health, isn’t insurance. They only list providers.
What?
“Okay, then who’s my insurance company?”
“It’s listed on the back of your card.”
It was some random Minnesota based company for small business insurance. That company’s website plus the First Health website plus the denial of a flu shot had me going full Usual Suspects/Spanish Prisoner* realization montage where I put together all the pieces of the scam. As a web developer, I know damn well how easy it is to make a fake website that looks real. (Get a WordPress theme, download some stock images, chatGPT some corporate speak examples, you can start reeling in suckers in no time.)
Friends’ questions were ringing in my ears. “They don’t cover flu shots? Is this an Affordable Care Act plan?”
“Uh, no, they guy said I could get a cheaper private plan.”
“Well, who was that through if not New York State of Health?”
“I, uh, I don’t know…”
I went back to the day that I signed up for this plan in my call history. I found the one outgoing number that I had called. When I googled that number, it said “health insurance, robocall.” It was a spam number.
I went to that day in my browser history, and I had gone to nystatehealthplans.com instead of https://nystateofhealth.ny.gov/. How? I don’t know.
* Right about now is the time to acknowledge that most of you will have more familiarity with The Usual Suspects than with The Spanish Prisoner. Both are relevant but the latter is truly applicable in this case and if you haven’t seen it, you should.
I started googling “First Health” and some websites came up but also several message boards with the heading, “Did I get scammed?”
I thought I was screwed. I called the company to cancel, thinking they would give me the run around. But they were perfectly helpful. I mean, hell, I gave them my money and I’m not threatening legal action to get it back. I bet I’m their dream customer.
So, be careful out there. In talking to several people, it became clear that it’s hard to determine what real insurance is. From what I could suss out from testimonials, you would basically just file a claim, and they would deny you coverage. Technically that’s an insurance company. It’s a shitty one but you can’t prove they’re not an insurance company.
A kind friend told me that I shouldn’t feel stupid even though, believe me, I did. But to drive that point home, the name of the insurance that scammed me was “First Health,” the legit NY State marketplace insurance I got today is called “Healthfirst.” Christ, at least I hope it’s legit. I may be writing another post about this.
And finally, I just wanted to mention that November 1st is the first day of National Novel Writer’s Month, NaNoWriMo. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, it’s an organization that challenges you to write 50,000 words of fiction in the month of November. I did it in 2006 and 2007.
The stuff I wrote was garbage.
Despite that, I still enjoyed the experience, and I think it’s a valid exercise to get out of your own way and just churn out content. It’s better than not writing because of perfectionism or fear (which are essentially the same).
I always thought, what if I wrote 50,000 words in my blog every day instead of trying to write a novel? I never find the time, though, and November always passes.
But maybe not this year. Even though it’s November 2nd as I write this, I’m going to give it a shot. Maybe by tomorrow I’ll abandon the whole thing but for now, this is one post in the books.
So thank you if you’ve made it this far. I’ll update you on the insurance thing.
And also the arrival of the red Starbucks cups. They should be coming any day now.
