... my mom, my sister and I are all like when we're together, I give you this entry. I am filling out new hire forms for my new part-time gig and I come to the set of papers for life insurance. I know my mom took out a life insurance policy for me already, and so I dismiss the need for establishing a new one, but I do so aloud, which causes Mags to interject. She chimes, "Oh. You need that."
"I already have one. I've only got one life. How many life insurance policies does a person need?"
"If they offer it, you take it," Mags says emphatically, hitting the point home with a firm wave of the hand. This should settle it, but it doesn't.
"Yeah, you need to go on and get that," Kim says like we're two playas who've just scoped somebody to holla at at some bar.
Still I protest because I don't know how much stuff like this is gonna cost me erry month. I hate being a grownup. Even worse, I hate the fact that some invisible bastid (not FICA, but the other punk) is snatchin' what's mine before I really even get it.
"But you need it. It's for a good cause," Mags insists in her increasingly impatient maternal tone. We might as well be tusslin' over some pilgrim-collared dress. But I persist. 'Tis my nature.
" Cause? " I snap to myself, because I realize my mom was looking for another word. Shit. I ain't no cause, I think to myself. Since when is life insurance a good cause? They actin' like it's all mandatory when partaking in causes is optional. And furthermore, why are we referring to it as "taking out" a life insurance policy ... or "opening up?" Where the kcuf is it going? Where exactly am I taking this policy? I don't know where my life itself is going and yet a good 30 minutes has gone by with me debating my life's policy with my mom and my sister. Take out. Well I say, don'tcha know, you say you don't know, and a sheet of paper says, "Take me out."
Mishegas.
So I take it out. Mother knows best and because Family Plots was actually playing on A&E for the duration of this conversation (almost too much of a coincidence, but even funnier to me) my mom bolsters her argument by saying all smartass-y, mind you, "If anything you need it so we can bury you."
Like she just burned me with a yo mama joke or something.
"I want to be cremated."
"That costs, too. You better take it out for $50,000." (She's initially stated 25.)
"To be cremated?!" I exclaim. Incredulous. "Shit," I say sounding just like my daddy. "All this creeps me out, talkin' 'bout my life like it's 'bout to be over. Y'all ain't cashin' in on me."
And then I wonder that something is awry with both of them talking about me like I'm in the last stages. Hell. I'm the youngest. I also worry the most (and look it) and so I say aloud, "Y'all talkin' 'bout me like I'm 'on go first. Shood. Y'all old."
Kim shakes her head. Mags is apparently not keen to let this die so she says, "You could die any time any place. You could leave today for work and someone could pull a gun on you. And there you are. Dead."
"Well damn, Mama," Kim says, also sounding like daddy.
"Well it's true," Mags says returning her haughtily held head towards the TV. She said that shit with the same insouciance that one says, "C'est la vie."
I shrug. She is right about that and all, but dern. Two life insurance policies? For just my one life? If I wasn't paying for it, I'd probably feel special. Just a few minutes later, though, I found out how special I really am.
I ain't never filled out these life insurance forms so I had issues when I flipped to the beneficiary page.
Just in case sittin' solo on a loveseat (see NOLA pt. one post - coming later on today!) wasn't indication enough of my singlelocity, I read this page that says sumpin' like, "If you die, who you want us to send this check to? Is there anyone who'll line up first to toss some dirt on the sorry ass cardboard box this policy barely covers? Who? Is there anyone to toss your ashes like dust in the wind?"
Uh, no?
"Ma! Who? What? ... sumpin' 'bout a beneficiary. Who I'm s'posed to put?" I flash back to the "welcome to womanhood" chat. That's how clueless I feel, baffled by one more thing I can't control.
"You put me," says Mags.
"How I'm s'posed to put you if you're s'posed to die before me?"
Humph. How you like me now? I think, all badass.
"Well, you put me. Or you put Kim," she says like she's Don Corleone and I'm some peon pleading for favors. "I mean you ain't got nobody, so what?"
If that statement were a jumpshot, it'd say, "And 1! Beeyotch."
"Ouch, Mama. Ouch," I am so dejected. "I mean damn."
Kim, meanwhile, spews the water she was sippin'. Mags just laughs. "Well, you don't! You got to leave it to somebody and it may as well be me."
She says this like if that time was right then, if I'd died that very second, she'd be less devastated and more exasperated at having to pick up after me still ... even in death.
"But Mama," I protest laughing. "You don't have to be so blunt about it. I mean you make me sound like, dern, I ain't never gonna have any beneficiaries of my own ..."
"Well ..." she says, bubbling into giggles as she shrugs like it ain't no thing.
She is laughing so hard that we all just collapse into sidesplitting laughter that brings us to tears. We are laughing at me and all my (un)likelihoods ... what a prospect I am, eh?
But these are the things I'll remember; the things - the joy - that'll carry my spirited ashes on over when my time comes; the things no policy could ever cover, on which no insurance could ever stake claim.
The NOLA*Jazzfest posts are gonna be long, but I have to take you there with me, and you should just act like it's Friday and you ain't go not job or no shit to do ... They'll be posted later on today, so y'all come back now, yah heah? :)