I’d like to preface this column with a word of thanks to all the wonderful readers who sent supportive emails regarding the recent parting of The (Former) Lovely Mrs. Taylor and yours truly. They helped, particularly the one from Gary S., who called me “one of the great humorists of our time.”
Yes, I did offer him 10 bucks to say that, but it was so worth it. In fact, Gary, I think you’ll find a little something extra in the envelope this time. It couldn’t have been easy to write that with a straight face.
Being single again has presented me with a few challenges. Not the misogynistic gripes voiced by most newly-divorced men: “What? How come my socks aren’t getting clean? Who’s gonna wash all these dishes?” and so on.
Unlike those guys, I’ve been living on my own for years now and have become quite the little housewife. I know how to clean socks and wash a dish.
It’s marriage’s “man jobs” I stink at. Throughout our relationship, The (former) Lovely Mrs. T handled our joint finances; the phone bill, the utilities, the car and medical insurance … all that stuff. I was an English major and can — on a good day — count to 10 all by myself. But I need all my fingers for that.
Mrs. (former) T is an accountant. She can calculate the assets between the general ledger and balance sheet and figure out the gross margins of revenue between loss and inventoried receipts of net income vs. outlay (which may actually mean something, I have no way of knowing) in her sleep.
Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out how many apples I have if I start with two and then give one to a hungry donkey. And as far as that deal where two trains depart opposite stations heading toward each other and you have to guess when they meet? Let’s just say if I ever meet the guy who came up with that particular story problem, he’d better have a good dental plan.
Where was I? See, I can’t even write about THINKING about math without my brain shutting down.
But I needed new car insurance, the kind single guys get when they have only one vehicle. The last time I had to handle this myself Carter was president and the number one song on the radio was Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night.”
So I was expecting the 1977 process: Go to the insurance office, lie to the guy about not having any speeding tickets, hand him $45, head to the Secretary of State’s office, wait in line for six hours and pick up my plates.
Or maybe it would be even easier than that. This is the future, after all. At least it was in 1977. Maybe I could do it all online!
Turns out I could. It also turns out the future stinks.
I Googled “cheap insurance” and got 7,009,456,322 hits. The top 10 I skipped over, since they were all “sponsored,” which means their placement at the top of the list is completely unearned and meaningless.
A few pages down I found what I thought I needed; an insurance “clearing house,” one of those businesses that check with dozens of different insurance companies to find you the deal best tailored to YOUR specific needs! I made the call.
Like a fool (exactly like a fool, as it turns out) I gave the nice lady in Sri Lanka all my information. Email address, phone number, searchable Facebook handle, car type, VIN number, shoe size … I don’t even remember. But it was a lot.
She spent a few minutes on her computer and told me she’d found a great bargain for me. A few seconds later, I was talking with another nice woman who wanted to sell me insurance FOUR TIMES more expensive than what I’d been paying.
I told her I’d think about it and hung up. Two seconds later my phone rang; another agent with another “deal.” My inbox blew up with urgent messages from still more agents. The phone kept ringing and hasn’t stopped. Sigh.
If there are any single, female accountants with dirty socks out there, let’s talk.
