Parent’s Day Disaster Averted

California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard saved the Maxwell family’s son Dandy from financial disaster when Dandy’s parents became ill from the celebratory dinner he’d prepared.

Dandy Maxwell fancied himself a chef, but he should have been licensed as a poisoner. Still, he was quite passive-aggressive, and when he coerced his two frail and elderly parents, Dinah and Divine, to a celebratory supper for Parent’s Day on July 25th, they felt obligated to attend, although approached the obscure holiday with a sense of dread. The only precaution that the parents in question had taken was a Medigap policy, a prudent raft of supplemental insurance from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, who knew Dandy all too well – as he was a client too. “If they’d stuck to drinking coffee when visiting their son’s Maxwell house, they’d have been better off,” Matt opined in retrospect.

Dinah and Divine were also on a fixed income, a condition that being hospitalized even briefly can wreak havoc with. At least “food poisoning” was something that was covered insurance-wise – which unfortunately came to be pertinent.

To make a long story briefer, after all, its roots were anchored in both spite and an unrequited bite – Dinah and Divine had neglected to purchase braces many years before when Dandy had been a mere lad -- but these were unconscious underpinnings, more like underpine-ings – Dandy prepared a concoction, some sort of East Indian curry with raw fish, and for their Parent’s Day feast, Dinah and Divine dutifully gulped it down. Immediately, a sense of nausea appeared, a bit like the Dickensonian ghost of Christmas Past, and this led to vomiting, and stomach cramps, and near-delirium.
Although passive-aggressive in the extreme, Dandy had the sense to ferry his forebears to the nearest ER, and after having their elderly stomachs pumped, a few days later Dinah and Divine were resting comfortably at home.

When the phone rang, it was their son, Dandy. “I just cooked a meal to make up for what happened,” he chirped sweetly, “It’s chicken divan, your favorite,” he said to his mother.

“Why don’t you invite Matt Lockard?” she suggested, not wanting to bruise her only son’s feelings,

“He loves chicken divan.”

When the invitation came, Matt had his excuse at the ready. “I was bitten by a termite,” he said, “and I don’t dare leave for fear of an infestation.”

Dandy sobbed into the phone, and Matt, unsure what to do next, quietly hung up.

To learn more please visit: http://www.mattsinsurance4ca.com

California Health Insurance Agent Aids Fireworks-Addicted Family

They celebrated 4th of July with reckless abandon in the spirit of misguided patriotism. Until this year’s crazed private celebration, all had gone relatively well.

The Donegans, Bob, Mitzy, and their kids, Joey, Johnny, and Jimmy loved to light fireworks on their land near Eureka. They’d get it from Tijuana, and drive up past San Francisco with enough firepower every 4th of July to start their own preemptive war. Their family health insurance plan typically served for mundane family catastrophes that might occur at other times of the year. Except for this single idiosyncrasy, a well-intentioned rite for celebrating our nation’s birthday, the Donegans were pretty ordinary. Bob was a self-employed entrepreneur with a computer repair business. Mitzy did the company’s books, and the kids, already quite computer literate, did the troubleshooting if the trouble wasn’t too complicated.

Around June 29th the family drove off merrily humming. Their black hummer headed south for the border toward Tijuana’s fireworks stands, some with supermarket-like inventories, to stock up on Roman candles and bottle rockets, salutes and M-80s, blockbusters and cherry bombs, even sparklers and snakes for little Jimmy, who was only twelve and a bit more timid than his brothers and parents.
Once back home, preparation for festive explosions and “the lighting” always was a big production. Neighbors came from miles around. Bob and Mitzy were relatively safety-conscious, but their boys could be downright careless – especially Johnny, a sullen 14-year-old who loved to see just about anything “blow up.” He was about to stuff a live M-80 into the unsuspecting maw of Spritzy, the family’s beloved Dalmatian, when the explosive power of that quarter-stick of dynamite exploded prematurely and blew up near a horrified Jimmy, trying to save the dog. Mitzy dialed her family’s California Health Insurance agent in the nick of time. “Dial 911 – Stat!” he screamed over the phone. She did, and Jimmy was rushed to the nearest regional medical center via ambulance.

They all went to visit Jimmy after the surgery. He was bandaged up. “You look just like The Mummy from that movie,” remarked Johnny, displaying his usual contemptuous flair for the insensitive.
“How’s Spritzy?” Jimmy managed to ask, barely audible through his wrappings.

Matt Lockard - California Health Insurance agency offers health insurance plans for individuals, families, and children. Also available are California Medicare Supplement policies. Go to http://mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote.

Hug-A-Cat Day Reluctantly Celebrated

Everyone in California enjoyed celebrating June 4 as Hug-A-Cat Day, except for California Health Insurance Agent Matt Lockard.

Matt Lockard, California Health Insurance agent extraordinaire, didn’t know. He was really clueless about National Hug-A-Cat Day being celebrated on the 4^th of June.

When the calls from cat-loving clients kept ringing him up on the 3^rd, a whole slew of them, Matt was puzzled and even wary. “I assumed it was some sort of practical joke,” Matt explained.

Matt was less than enthused, especially when clients such as Mrs. Bessie Morgenthau began texting him on his Smartphone. “After she texted me about a dozen times, I’d had enough,” Matt said, “When I texted her back, I told her that I didn’t even like cats.”

This did not go over well. During the remainder of Hug-a-Cat Day eve, the calls kept coming in, overwhelmingly pro-cat, increasingly irate.

“Why aren’t you out with your cat preparing for the hug-a-cat-a-thon?” a client who refused to be identified finally asked the exasperated Matt, hearing a distinct purring in the background. “I don’t have a cat,” Matt replied, but at that moment, he almost wished he did.

The next day, National Hug-A-Cat Day, dawned smoggy and putrid, as if a disgusting cat box had been left in Matt’s office. Matt opened the door like any dutiful and hardworking California Health Insurance agent might, and entered. “What’s that smell?” Matt immediately said. A few seconds later, he saw it, a real cat box, and several little cat houses made of hard plastic not far from where the litter would go if he had any. “Oh no!” Matt cried, and then, perhaps instinctively, “Here kitty?”

Suddenly, out from the cat houses came one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight of them, Matt counted. Matt sat down and began sobbing, and then a strange thing happened. The cats started coming up to him, nestling against his trouser shins which were soon covered in cat hairs. Matt reached out and started petting. “These animals just want to be fed,” Matt said aloud. Still, despite his best instincts, he picked one up, little more than a kitten, and hugged it.

To learn more please visit: http://www.mattsinsurance4ca.com

Father’s Day Reunion

Daemon had been lost to the Smith family for more than a decade. But when John Smith’s mauling by the rarely seen wolverine had made the TV news, partly because of a California Health Insurance agent’s more than due diligence, Father’s Day 2010 became extra special.

John Smith and his wife Becca were preparing for their annual Father’s Day “cookout and fleshly barbeque” when the unthinkable happened. Usually the event drew the Smith’s three remaining children – Michael (named after the archangel), Mary (named after the mother of Jesus), and John Jr. (named after his Dad), ages 27, 29, and 31 respectively. Another Smith spawn was seldom spoken of. He’d left home at 18 for parts unknown, although rumors had surfaced that he’d become a Major League Baseball superstar for the Dodgers. Since the Smiths all hated baseball and none of them owned a television or radio, even if Daemon was playing shortstop with the Dodgers, his family wouldn’t have known. In fact, the family’s “black sheep” had become almost as famous as Manny Ramirez. Daemon was 32 now, and in fourteen years, there hadn’t been a single letter from the prodigal Smith son to any of his family members. Perhaps strangely, Daemon had become estranged.

The accident involved the elder Smith. He was on the far side of Beverly Hills, his musket in hand, searching for a main course for the family’s upcoming “cookout and fleshly barbeque.” If he’d been watching TV, he’d have known to avoid the far side of Beverly Hills. This nefarious region had become the lair of the infamous “Beverly Hills Wolverine.” It was on the news almost non-stop that day. The far side of Beverly Hills was like a ghost town. “It’s awful quiet in these parts. Just me and my blunderbuss,” John Smith managed to say aloud, before the wolverine pounced. Wolverines are quite vicious. Just ask anyone from Michigan.

A California Health Insurance agent living in the neighborhood discovered Mr. Smith, who had purchased a policy on a prudent whim a few months back. The agent called ‘911.’ His second call was to the TV news stations.

On Father’s Day, the Smiths settled for turkey as their main course. Becca, Michael, Mary, and John Jr. were sitting down at the family picnic table with the bandaged John Sr., everyone in a melancholy mood when guess who showed up, bringing half the Dodgers?

Matt Lockard - California Health Insurance agency offers health insurance plans for individuals, families, and children. Also available are California Medicare Supplement policies. Go to http://mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote.

Oh Christmas Tree

Getting a Christmas tree and decorating it was a family tradition for Oxnard’s Dickensonian family, the Crachits – despite all that Mr. Scrooge might do to stop them. By golly, they’d get one, but they would need the advice of California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard to accomplish their festive task.

On the meager lucre Ebenezer C. Scrooge paid him, Bob Crachit was losing hope of getting a tree for Christmas. It was for Timothy’s sake. His youngest, a diminutive buck-toothed lad in dire need of a charitable orthodontist, was reduced to a limp and walked with an odd little cane. He was afflicted with Goober’s Palsy, a degenerative illness said to be nearly always fatal since the economic collapse of ’07, when the cure for it had supposedly been lost. “Tim,” an intuitive child of eight years, seemed to know he might die someday, but was constantly embarrassing the Crachits by blurting, “I got Goobers!” with the regularity of a metronome.

“Why must I work on Christmas Day this year?” asked Bob Crachit.

“Because it falls on a Friday, and that’s a weekday,” replied the irascible Scrooge.

But the next day, a neighbor, Mr. Alfred C. Nice to be precise, gave a tree to the Crachits after hearing of the family’s plight.

“It’s for you, Tiny Tim,” the generous benefactor told the usually mild-mannered youngest child in the privacy of the Crachit’s humble parlor.

“Don’t you ever call me that,” hissed the palsied boy.

Timothy was to rue those incongruously hostile words spoken on the eve of Christmas Eve. As the festive decorating of the tree advanced to its denouement, and Tim was hoisted up into the air above his father’s scrawny shoulders, the boy slipped while preparing to place the star, and was painfully, if not fatally, impaled through his tender belly. “Oh Christmas tree!” the buck-toothed boy screamed. At this point, with a trip to the nearest emergency room imminent, Bob Crachit needed reassurance and Christmas cheer in the worst way. So he called his California Health Insurance agent, Matt Lockard, to see if “Christmas tree impalings” were covered under his family plan. As the family eagerly listened, he received his answer.
“Oh yes they are!” he exclaimed upon hanging up the phone.

Later, after being stitched up, Tim Cratchit brought them all back to reality. “God bless everyone,” the palsied boy said with a cookie cutter elfish grin, followed by the inevitable, “I got Goobers.”

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

The Death of Algernon

Larry Kowalski had been a surfer and still enjoyed swimming in the Pacific. But when it wasn’t summer, the days were depressingly shorter, and Larry asked his California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard if his policy covered Freudian psychiatric care. As for the demise of his son’s pet turtle, that just wasn’t at the core of his sadness.

Larry loved summer. He preferred that halcyon season to last forever, an endless array of longest days spent frolicking in the California surf & sun. Every year was the same. The days grew shorter. He didn’t surf anymore now that he was approaching fifty and a friend of his had been eaten by a supposedly friendly great white shark down near San Diego. But he still swam in the Pacific, albeit cautiously. As summer waned this year, and with the death of Algernon, his son’s pet turtle, he felt especially saddened. At the turtle’s funeral in the cathedral amid a multitude of mourners, some of them prominent veterinarians and circus performers, Larry realized he needed help -- a Freudian psychiatrist’s talk therapy. He knew at that moment that Algernon was the last thing on his mind, but he still cried.

That very afternoon, Larry phoned his California Health Insurance agent, Matt Lockard, who was also a friend. If anyone would understand, it was Matt. “Hi Matt, I was wondering if my policy covered my seeing a therapist for depression, preferably someone I can talk to in regular sessions, does it?”

Matt Lockard paused to ponder in his characteristic way. “You want to see a shrink?”

“Yes,” Larry admitted, “one of those Freudian guys.”

“I think so,” said Matt, “It’s under psychiatric services. Sure.”

Matt was also there to listen. “I heard about Algernon’s death,” the California Health Insurance agent consoled, “It was in the paper. Your family must be devastated.”

“Oh, it’s not that,” Larry admitted.

“What is it then?” Matt queried suspiciously, suddenly a bit perplexed and truth be, maybe a trifle angered at his friend’s obvious lack of empathy. How could Larry be so callous? Didn’t everyone in California love that amazing little reptile?

“I do miss Algernon, and I realize how much he meant to my son and to everyone else apparently, but I just realized that what’s making me sad is seasonal. I love summer, those long days spent frolicking in the Pacific surf, I still swim …”

“And now suddenly it’s over. Summer’s over. I understand completely,” Matt said, starting to grow misty-eyed himself when he realized the enormity of what had been lost.

“I still swim,” Larry repeated, and both men began sobbing.

Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.

Mobry’s 2010 Medicare Advantage PPO

Mabel Mobry, a hippie centenarian from San Francisco, wondered if she had the freedom to get a prescription for medical marijuana under her 2010 Medicare Advantage PPO plan, so she phoned her trusted California Health Insurance agent to find out.

Mabel Mobry, still spry after surviving for exactly a century, pined for the days when she could get high with reckless abandon before all those Draconian blue laws gummed things up. When she was younger, she’d gone to Woodstock and heard Jimmy Hendrix play the national anthem. She relished her infamous pot parties, toking up and going straight to the bong, and getting a buzz. She’d married a man named Buzz, her third husband, as a way to immortalize those halcyon days, but he’d died in the bicentennial year, 1976, and that was a while ago. But now, in 2009, the pendulum was swinging back. Downtown and in the suburbs, marijuana was alive again, quasi-legal, if you used it for medical purposes. Stores sold it openly, if you had a prescription from a doctor. But Mabel was quite healthy for a centenarian. “I don’t feel a day over 94,” Mabel said to her cat, Woodstock, a white Angora that liked to party. What could she do to get her bong out again, a relatively law abiding old lady’s simple pleasure?

Suddenly she had a brilliant idea, concerning her 2010 Medicare Advantage plan, the documents comprising it just sitting on the blue kitchen table getting dusty. Rock music started pounding in her head, Led Zeppelin playing some sort of anthem. She felt the freedom to act like Buzz’s warm caressing fingers remembered. He was her favorite husband when it came to physicality. Ring, once was all it took as her trusted California Health Insurance agent, a devout liberal thank God, picked up.

“Mrs. Mobry,” he said, sounding like a cherub although he had to be at least sixty, “What can I do you for?” A free spirit, the guy liked the freedom to juxtapose. He was humming the Star Spangled Banner, our national anthem.

She came straight to the point. Woodstock was listening and nodded his approval. “Can my 2010 Medicare Advantage plan incorporate a prescription for medical marijuana? Would such treatments be covered?”

“Do you have any medical conditions that might apply?” asked the cherubic California Health Insurance agent.

Mabel thought about it, but didn’t want to lie. “I might be going blue blind,” she said, shading the truth just a mite, as she could still see well enough to watch the Freedom Bowl parade on television, with its colorful anthem playing.

“That might do,” said the cherubic agent, “That just might do you.”

Matt Lockard – California Health Insurance agency offers health insurance plans for individuals, families, and children. Also available are California Medicare Supplement policies. Go to Mattsinsurance4ca.com to get an instant health insurance quote and to learn more about California health insurance, California medicare supplements, California health insurance quotes.