Here's the first part of a short story I'm writing:
Dale bought the cancer insurance during his employer’s open enrollment period because last year Patty from customer care hadn’t. She had opted instead for the flexible spending plan, known as Section 125, which allocated pretax dollars for certain medical and/or dependent daycare expenses. Patty wanted Lasik eye surgery to correct her nearsightedness. She was sick of glasses, had struggled with contacts for years. During the initial consultation, the ophthalmologist found a thing in her eye. The thing soon spread to her brain.
Had she invested in the cancer insurance, Patty would’ve received $10,000 free and clear on the eighth day following her diagnosis. Unfortunately for her, there was no cash consolation prize to enjoy as her motor skills declined, just a steady supply of Dilaudid, a schedule II controlled opioid agonist.
This year’s open enrollment period was a somber affair for everyone except Greg, HeathNet’s benefits rep. Patty had chewed him out last year for trying to up-sell her the cancer insurance. Now Greg sat at the head of the table in conference room B, also known as Aspen, wearing a cheap suit and a bittersweet smile, a fleshy prophet clutching a stack of supplemental indulgences.
Had Patty been there that day (and not in a persistent vegetative state at Encino-Tarzana regional medical center), he was sure she would’ve expressed her regret at not getting the cancer insurance while the getting was good.
Emboldened by his vindication, Greg swaggered through his pitch. His head swiveled like a gun turret as he spoke – left to right, right to left – his eyes targeting each person in the room as he fired off morbid statistics.
“Look around you,” he said. “According to the American Cancer Society, the person sitting next to you has a 50-percent chance of getting cancer in his or her lifetime.”
The person sitting next to Dale was his boss Lewis. Dale found himself wishing that if Lewis were destined to get cancer, he'd get it by next Thursday, which was when the big Maricopa County proposal was due. Dale had slacked on this one, as he did on most, and was dismayed to discover rather late in the game that the RFP required over 200 essay-style responses.
Dale envisioned an aggressive and inoperable malignancy, one that would force Lewis to step down immediately and without the benefit of a successor. Lost in the ensuing chaos, rendered trivial by metastasis, would be that silly RFP.
"The dead tell no tales," Dale whispered, a little louder than he had intended. This garnered him an annoyed look from Lewis and the attention of Greg.
"Did you have a question?" he asked Dale.
“No,” he said. “Not at this time.”
***
Over lunch, Dale considered his options. He made 55K a year, so it’s not like he was swimming in dough. And as we all know, Section 125 is a “use it or lose it” proposition. If for whatever reason Dale failed to spend the pretax dollars deducted from his wages, he forfeited them to Uncle Sam.
In the end, Dale decided to pass on the flexible spending plan even though he was in need of major dental work and agreed to sink $18 a month of discretionary income into a cancer policy. In retrospect, this was the right thing to do. That little lump that popped up on his wrist five months later turned out to be a soft tissue sarcoma. When it spread to the bone, his oncologist headed it off at the pass by sawing off his arm at the elbow.
Dale turned to Jesus for strength but it was Dilaudid that answered his prayers. It spoke in a soothing voice that told him everything would be okay, even if he were to die. It had a sense of humor, made him giggle, told him not to sweat the small stuff and in the same sweet breath assured him that it was all small stuff. Cancer seemed a small price to pay for this brand of bliss.
After 30 days his oncologist, a joyless bastard named Stanger, cut him off. No more pain meds for poor Dale. From this day forward, Jesus would have to do all the heavy lifting.
And that’s when his check arrived.
Suddenly, Dale was $10,000 richer at the expense of his right arm. The obvious question was, what to do with the money? Dale started looking at home theater systems, fell in love with the floor model at Ken Crane’s Big Screen Headquarters, and was appalled to learn that it cost almost $18,000. In cancer terms, an arm and a leg – just below the knee.
Given his recent amputation, Dale was a little stingy with his remaining appendages. Plus he was a little vague on HealthNet’s policy on second occurrences. Not that he was hoping for a relapse – no one in his right mind would – but if insurance companies were going to attach a financial value to affliction, then Dale wanted to make sure he was getting the going rate.
He thought about a cruise. They started at about three grand, airfare included, with the top-of-the-food chain deluxe model coming in at just under 9k. Dale wondered whether a trip to Fiji was the answer. That if he had survived for some purpose, then perhaps that purpose would be revealed on a Carnival Cruise. He imagined a ruptured hull, a stampede to the lifeboats. He saw himself deftly passing out life jackets, one arm doing the work of two, perhaps saving a child.
Dale deposited the money into his savings account. The teller, a slender brunette just this side of pretty, could not conceal her shock. Last time she’d seen him he’d been whole, a middle manager (she imagined) with less than 4k in both accounts (she knew). His advance had been tenuous, a mumbled invitation during a contrived transaction; her rebuff had been perfunctory, a simple “I have a boyfriend” as she counted out the bills, fanning them out for his inspection.
Truth be known, Dale wasn’t liquid enough for her predilections. Stacy – that was her name – preferred men with diversified portfolios, with assets spread across multiple investments. She took narcotics on the weekends, this teller, this girl named Stacy.
