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.

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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.

Alien Abductions: The Ultimate in Outsourced Medical Care?

Geronimo Jones believed that he’d been abducted by aliens, but his delusions didn’t end there. He went so far as to call a California Health Insurance agent to see if he’d be charged for their “very thorough” probes.

Thirty-four year old Geronimo Jones, hypochondriac and confirmed cheapskate, was lying in bed painfully pondering. He’d been plagued by headaches and this one was a “doozy.” Tylenol hadn’t helped. Geronimo’s split-level ranch in Modesto recently had an alarm installed; he’d gotten a deal. Drifting off to an anguished sleep, Geronimo possibly awakened; he wasn’t sure, instead of a clanging alarm he heard only silence, and was taken, by what appeared to be silver-throated aliens, at least several – one wearing a funny extraterrestrial baker’s hat. Up to the mother ship he possibly went, he wasn’t sure exactly how, it didn’t involve diesel. He lay on a metallic table unable to move anything but his pinkies, staring at what appeared to be a photograph of a cat; it probably had fur.

The probing began. One alien seemed to have a medical background, and was evidently very thorough. It felt very good; whatever he was doing. But a weird voice oozing out of an orifice that might have been the creature’s mouth suddenly blasted Geronimo out of his reverie like a Buck Rogers laser beam. “Do you have Earthling coverage?”

The next morning, Geronimo Jones for the first time in a year didn’t have a headache but was having a panic attack. “Are those aliens crazy? I didn’t ask to be admitted to their mother ship. Are they going to charge me for treatment?”

Geronimo charged. Impulsively, he put in a frantic call to his California Health Insurance agent. Ring. Ring. Pick up, pick up. “Yes,” said the agent, a woman with a pleasant feline voice, akin to a human purr.

“This is Mr. Jones.”

“Geronimo from Modesto?”

“Yes. It happened last night.”

“What?”

“I was abducted by aliens.”

“Again?”

“This time they want to charge me for the medical care. Can they do that?”

The cat-like agent was quick on her feet. She pounced. “Yes, if they call me, they actually can. But they’ll have to call me.”

Geronimo felt calm again. Thinking it over, he felt like he’d made out like a bandit. More importantly, he didn’t have a headache.

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.

Black Friday Shopping Spree Turns Dark

Amelia Nosehart liked to fly through the malls to get a head start on Christmas. But a policy she’d purchased from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard literally helped save her sight when “shopping” went horribly wrong.

Amelia Nosehart’s favorite day of the year was the day after Thanksgiving when Rancho Bernardo shoppers could get a head start on their Christmas shopping with early bird specials. Retail stores in neighboring burbs would open at two, three, four, five a.m. in efforts to woo obsessed shoppers just like Amelia. But at Ye Olde Pet Shoppe what should have been a touch exotic, as 3:37 a.m. sprees go, almost turned deadly.

The chain store’s “exotic reptile” section was selling “baby spitting cobras” for an amazing $1.99 each. As Amelia joined the crazed throng of “early birders” she knew she had to have two or three of the venomous little critters, assuming they’d been defanged of course, as pets for her nephews Josh and Andy, both notoriously difficult to buy for. As Amelia nearly “flew” through to the front of the frenzied crowd of typical Black Friday bargain hunters, a glass case accidentally cracked open in the madness and she heard a slight “hsst” and felt excruciating pain in her left eye, the one with astigmatism.

Rushed to the nearest hospital for obligatory anti-venom treatment and eye cleansing, Amelia was obliged to stay overnight as a precaution, and called Matt Lockard, her friendly California Health Insurance agent at his office in Ventura, just to let him know what had happened at Ye Olde Pet Shoppe.

“Matt. Guess who this is? It’s Amelia. I’m in the hospital,” she said.

He kind of recognized her. “Like the legend?”

“Yes, sort of,” she said, “Guess what happened to me on Black Friday.”

“What?” he asked, remembering the policy he’d sold her just a few months back, covering just about any kind of emergency.

She provided the gory details, about the crowds, the frenzy, the early morning madness, and the baby snakes for her nephews.

“You’re lucky you can still see out of that eye,” Matt opined.

“I can’t at the moment. They gave me a patch. It’s still light-sensitive.”

“Oh,” Matt said, “but you sound so happy.”

“Why shouldn’t I be happy?” explained Amelia, “Ye Olde Pet Shoppe not only gave me the baby cobras for free, they threw in an EXTRA pair. They’re all in my semi-private room with me now in a convenient ‘holiday’ Plexiglas case. Josh and Andy are going to be absolutely thrilled!”

“I hope they have been defanged,” Matt offered.

Amelia squinted, feeling a twinge.

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.

When Turkey Raising Turns Foul

Twelve-year-old Gifford Sullivan was asked to raise a turkey for his family’s Thanksgiving dinner and … his turkey became a pet. Because of California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, the disaster that ensued was not made infinitely worse.

Gifford loved his turkey. No, literally. Gifford loved his turkey. A Sullivan family tradition was to have the eldest child raise a wild turkey that would, at the appointed time, a few days prior to Thanksgiving, be sacrificed as the family’s dinner. “Don’t get too attached to that turkey, Giff,” his mom tried to tell him, but such an admonition was useless. The animal-loving twelve-year-old had come to consider Isabelle (yes, the boy had already secretly named the hen turkey purchased to be slaughtered) a member of their family and a cherished pet. Every morning before school he’d gone into the turkey’s pen in the backyard of the Sullivan’s Oxnard home to feed, clean up after, and otherwise nurture the growing fowl; he was conniving for a way to somehow save “Isabelle’s” life.

Gifford’s siblings Wayne and Toby were relatively indifferent to Gifford’s conflict. “That turkey is going to be the best Thanksgiving meal ever,” teased ten-year-old Wayne, “it’s better than any store-bought butterball.” Nine-year-old Toby was even worse in his way, tormenting his older brother while acting innocent as a sacrificial lamb. “Which part do you like best? I go for drumsticks,” he taunted. Gifford would run off sobbing to the sanctuary of Isabelle’s backyard pen, to hug the bewildered turkey.

Finally, the execution day came. Godfrey Sullivan raised the axe beside the chopping block which was also in the Sullivan’s backyard, and just as the horrific scene with the turkey caught in the vise …
Gifford ran headlong toward his father, his only thought to rescue Isabelle as the axe was raised at the proper angle and began descending …

The axe fell and the boy screamed. Blood gushed everywhere. The family headed toward the nearest hospital’s ER, protected only cost-wise by a convenient family health plan sold to them the previous year by California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard.

Gifford developed amnesia after the accident. “Did you get enough to eat?” his mom asked.

“Yeah, mom, but I got a question. How come I had to have veggie burgers instead of turkey like everybody else?”

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.

Cult of the Great Pumpkin

California health insurance agents pay homage to Charlie Brown’s comic strip deity.

In the legendary comic strip “Peanuts,” created by the late Charles Schultz, Shultz’s young hero Charlie Brown celebrated Halloween in a pumpkin patch where The Great Pumpkin sat. The cartoon boy with an “every boy’s” persona would ask the Great Pumpkin arcane questions about life; and in a manner of being, the inanimate orange harvest veggie assumed the stature of an odd deity – or at least a sage in the tradition of certain gods transported from Greek Mythology.

As a religion, such a pumpkin cult has its merits, and in these days of strident calls for health care reform, certain California Health Insurance agents have taken to visiting pumpkin patches in search of their own personal Great Pumpkin that may exist in the nether regions between Visalia and Fresno. For days the search for this orange quasi-deity has continued unabated, but although some giant spheroids, many with black features painted on them like human faces, have been located, none as of yet can be considered sacred or wiser than others culled from among their brethren.

“Where this Great Pumpkin resides…” proclaimed an excitable agent from the environs around San Bernardino, speaking aloud but in very muted tones, “makes him liable to be an oracle able to speak in tongues, or to offer wisdom, perhaps possessing a fluency understandable only to those who sell policies for every conceivable need, including but necessarily limited to the occasional health-related whim.” This agent soon attracted a considerable following with such talk, and the second Cult of the Great Pumpkin was born.

Finally, as All Hallows Eve approached, a sacrifice was needed, and bands of gathering California Health Insurance agents began roaming the entire state like insurance-minded dervishes. Choosing a suitable Great Pumpkin, even for pie, proved to be a dangerous undertaking once the attention of the real Great Pumpkin was attracted, and soon chunks of familiar faces began turning up everywhere, during the night and especially once the sun was up. In fact, the most introspective California Health Insurance agents, imitating Charlie Brown in a wondrous reincarnation of animated perpetual boyhood, began sitting Buddha-like in sundry patches all over California. Finally, an unfortunate California Health Insurance agent was indeed mistaken for that very orange veggie he’d been searching for. It was bound to happen.

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.

Catching Colds When You Don’t Sleep

A lack of sleep compromises our immune systems and makes us more susceptible to colds and flu. A California Health Insurance agent is there for you so that you can sleep better.

Autumn is not only holiday season, with year-end delights beckoning, it’s also “cold and flu” season, which fewer people choose to celebrate. Instead of Thanksgiving turkey and yams, and Halloween treats, think vitamin C and Echinacea. But what about sleep – not getting enough can suppress the immune system and create a likelihood of sickness.

As any California Health Insurance agent can tell you, poor sleep habits and susceptibility to colds and influenza go hand-in-hand – much like a germ-spreading handshake. Sleep, its quantity and especially its quality, can play a role in maintaining the body’s defenses.

In a recent study conducted by the Archives of Internal Medicine, scientists tracked 153 men and women for a fortnight (two weeks), monitoring the quality and duration of sleep that these experimental subjects experienced. Next, during a five-day follow-up, the subjects were quarantined and exposed to cold viruses. Those who slept an average of less than seven hours a night, it transpired, were three times more likely to become ill as those who slept for at least eight hours.

Sleep and immunity are apparently interrelated. Studies have found that mammals that require the most sleep also produce increased levels of disease-fighting white blood cells, but not red blood cells -- even though both kinds of cells are produced in bone marrow and are derived from identical precursors.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have demonstrated that “good-sleeping” species resist pathogens (germs) with a special resilience.

California Health Insurance agents specialize in selling customized plans that allow their customers more sleep, as well as a better quality of REM sleep that facilitates dreams. If it’s known that you’re not sleeping enough, run; don’t walk, to the nearest office of a California Health Insurance agent before you catch a cold or flu bug. Celebrating the holidays is a lot more fun if you’re not sick – but if you do become ill, you’ll have the right coverage.

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.

Teens Need Their Beauty Sleep

When 15-year-old twins, Alexander and Penelope, began developing a myriad of symptoms, it was a mystery until a series of visits to a nearby hospital’s sleep clinic began to produce some answers. Their frantic parents would have been even more in a tizzy if the hospital bills hadn’t been covered – thanks to their California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard.

Alexander and Penelope were identical twins except for their gender. Blonde and blue-eyed, with perfect skin and on the cusp of being adults, the twins thrived during a marvelous summer. Tennis camp, sleepovers, surfing and swimming, camping, parachuting from 15,000 feet in their Dad’s twin-engine aircraft, the Smith kids played hard and slept hard, uninterrupted, for the months trailing the June solstice in the land of Ventura night. But when school began just before Labor Day, the teens began to change before their parent’s eyes.

Alexander developed a cyst under his left eye. Penelope began stumbling as if she were nearsighted although her vision had been tested in July at 20-10 left and right. Adolescence suddenly bred entire tribes of pus-filled pimples. Alexander became injury prone: When he tried to run he tripped most times, his perfectly proportioned legs no longer coordinated. “Something’s wrong,” Ashley, their mom, told Gary, their father, who was sure that there wasn’t. “It’s just the awkward stage,” he asserted.

“Are they both just being awkward?” Ashley Smith countered.

“They’re both teenagers,” Gary shrugged.

But the twins kept getting worse. Finally, because they did have a family plan purchased from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, Gary relented and took both 15-year-olds over to Dr. Nicole Tesla, the family’s trusted primary care physician. When she examined them, she knew the answer almost immediately. “How much are they sleeping?” she asked.

“They go up to their bedrooms,” Gary said. “The lights are out. Of course they’re sleeping.”

“How do you know?” asserted Dr. Tesla. When she spoke, electric sparks seemed to give a bluish tint to her waiting room’s tepid air. She suggested they find out for sure. Both twins were wired to biofeedback equipment on school nights to satisfy Dr. Tesla’s medically-based hunch.

Was this equipment covered? Gary called Matt Lockard to find out. It was.

The results were amazing. The kids weren’t getting their REM, the productive kind of rest signaled by rapid eye movements. “Teenagers need their beauty rest,” Dr. Tesla concluded.

“Alexander needs his too?” Ashley wondered.

“He sure does,” Dr. Tesla pronounced.

“But they have to go to school!” Gary said. The solution seemed simple: a modified school day built around later mornings and longer afternoons, a 9-5 adjustment. It was as if a solstice had returned to the land of Ventura night.

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Swine Flu Survival Guide

When Suzie Porcine went to the “swine flu” assembly she asked questions. Word got back to her dad what his daughter had asked. Mr. Albert Porcine kept stressing how lucky they were to already have a family plan purchased from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard. But he was sensitive about certain matters.
Escondido High, where Suzie Porcine attended, held an assembly to educate students about H1N1 influenza, also called “swine flu.” Sample bottles of Purell and surgical masks were handed to each student as they entered the auditorium.

The Principal, Mrs. Viscera Wormwood, stood poised on the stage prepared to introduce the health official who would be discussing his “swine flu survival guide,” whatever that was. But Suzie raised her hand. “What is swine flu? I had nothing to do with it no matter what anybody says.”

“What do you mean you have nothing to do with it?” asked Mrs. Wormwood.

“Everyone says it’s my fault!” Suzie yelled back. Murmurs turned into snickers.

“Porcine means pig,” taunted Bill Roberts. He was a tenth grader with hairy arms.

Anticipating a potential legal crisis, Mrs. Wormwood asked Suzie to leave the auditorium. After the assembly had ended, Mrs. Wormwood called the Porcine home. Mr. Albert Porcine picked up. After Mrs. Wormwood explained, Mr. Porcine squealed with indignation. “I hate this politically correct anecdotal name for H1N1 influenza,” he ranted, “Is your school asking to be sued?”

This was the response Mrs. Wormwood had feared. “No,” the principal said. But she had no clue about how to contradict the man until … Suzie began sneezing and coughing, and phlegm started flying.

“What’s going on?” Mrs. Wormwood couldn’t help asking, “Is it Suzie?” The phlegm kept flying.
Mr. Porcine was speechless for a moment. “Yes,” he said, “she’s sick.”

“Could it be swine flu?” Mrs. Wormwood bleated in the manner of a sheep.

“Don’t call it that!” Mr. Porcine screamed into the receiver. He hung up immediately, but once he did, he headed off with his daughter to the nearest Urgent Care. “Don’t worry princess,” he said. Suddenly California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard crossed his mind. At least we have a policy for emergencies, he figured.
“I hope I don’t have swine flu, Daddy,” Suzie rasped, her throat clogged with unspent mucus.

Albert Porcine started to correct his beloved daughter, and then stopped. “Let’s hope you don’t,” he managed, on the verge of tears.

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Maple Tree Allergy Maple Tree Allergy

All 13-year-old Billy Blalock wanted to do was rake his neighbor’s leaves to earn some spending money. When the sneezing fits began, the boy’s plans were threatened unless he could swallow a potent antihistamine prescribed by the family doctor. Thankfully, a California Health Insurance Agent had made the price of the pills a little easier for Billy’s parents to swallow.

Billy Blalock was eager to earn extra money. He needed a new skateboard and Playstation 3, but his parents were scrimping just to get by. His “job,” raking leaves at the Jones next door in their modest Rancho Bernardo ‘hood’, seemed like a no-brainer. When Sally Jones, a pert brunette thirty-something whom Billy considered “a second mom,” agreed to Billy’s raking after school, the teenager was elated.

“I can rake!” he exclaimed to Betty, his first mom, “I can rake!”

“Yes you can,” she replied deadpan, sort of like a 34-year-old feminine version of a Caucasian Barack Obama.

But a strange thing happened on the way to Billy’s raking. Underneath the Jones’s imported maple tree, an exotic from New England, Billy sneezed. He returned to raking. He sneezed again. He started raking again, a bit more tentatively this time. Suddenly he sneezed in a burst, once, twice, three times, perhaps a hundred times as he couldn’t stop sneezing. Billy was sneezing so hard he was crying. He ran away in tears from the poisonous tree straight to Sally’s ample bosom. “Second mom! Second mom!” Billy cried, “I can’t.”

“You can’t what?” Sally asked, noticing the tears in the eyes of her neighbor’s son.

“Rake,” Billy blurted, sobbing.

Billy’s real mom Betty decided to seek a medical solution since they’d purchased an individual child’s plan from a California Health Insurance agent. Dr. Quag was friendly to Billy at his office and patted his belly several times, which seemed a bit weird to the boy. The prescription, however, gave Billy hope. The doctor prescribed sixty milligrams twice a day of a drug called fexofenadine, also referred to as Allegra, and the funny thing was, Billy had even heard of it, having seen it recently on a TV commercial.

“Allegra,” Billy said, “I’ll be taking Allegra so I can rake by the maple tree!”

“Yes, you can,” said Dr. Quag, “if you remember to take your peach-colored pills!”

Betty was there too. “It’s peachy that Billy’s Allegra isn’t costing me out of pocket,” she said.

“Are they peach flavored?” Billy asked.

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.

Sneaking Candy

Pamela Longbottom tried to sneak a jawbreaker from her eight-year-old’s bag after returning home from trick-or-treating. Biting into the hard candy provoked a scream of pain, however, and an unexpected trip to their dentist. Having purchased dental coverage from a California Health Insurance agent eventually allowed her to smile again.

Pamela Longbottom, a single mom, decided to go out trick-or treating with Morticia, her pale-looking eight-year-old. She was pleasantly surprised when the choice of her daughter’s name was greeted positively for once by one of the family’s more astute neighbors. “Oh, I see you’re out with little Morticia,” Mrs. Joan Doe observed brightly, “on All Hallow’s Eve that seems right somehow.” The Doe’s were related to another family of Does down the block, John and Jane and their children Jack, Jubilee, and Tittera, who was in Morticia’s class at school. Doe was such an unusual name, Pamela mused. It was at Joan Doe’s house when several jawbreakers were dropped blithely into Morticia’s bag, as the child flashed a jack o’ lantern smile through a forest of mixed fang-like teeth, baby and permanent.

The trouble began at home when Pamela started inspecting her daughter’s treats. When Morticia wasn’t looking, she stole a raspberry jawbreaker, hoping that her cherub wouldn’t notice. Pamela popped the hard candy into her gob, and stupidly bit down. “Owwh!” she screamed. Morticia was horrified. “You stole one of my candies!” she bawled. “You’re sick!”

Pamela shot her progeny a look of sheer pain.

The next morning she visited her dentist, and thanked her lucky stars (she was into astrology) that the dentist’s bill for $467.52 would be covered under the comprehensive dental plan she’d purchased a few months earlier from a California Health Insurance agent.

Back at home, Pamela was watching enviously as her daughter sucked the remaining jawbreakers, raspberry, strawberry, and peach, savoring them with her mouth partially open, each time, it seemed, just to irritate her mother as Pamela was preparing a grocery list. Morticia would draw out the sucking and mouth movements in the manner of a feeding spider, making obnoxious noises and tongue gestures simultaneously. The display was hideous and finally, Pamela who was very distracted lost her patience. “Stop it Morticia!” she screamed.

“I will Mommy,” Morticia said, “but don’t you wish that Halloween came more than once a year?”

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.

Pork Chop Vultures

California Health Insurance Agent Matt Lockard was a pleasant voice to Mrs. Yakamora, but by the time they spoke, she’d had a close encounter with some undesirable avians.

Mrs. Tumera Yakamora, 87, weighed less than ninety pounds, but her Medigap coverage purchased from that bird-loving Matt Lockard was in effect if she ever needed it. Long-widowed, a single passion remained: Watching the birds that flocked to her Vallecito home.

Her mistake seemed innocent except when considered in retrospect. While stocking certain bird feeders, she began substituting small bits of pork chop instead of the recommended suet. “I think this will be a nice change of pace for my little friends,” Mrs. Yakamora said to no one in particular. She often engaged in lively banter with no one in particular.

Pork chop in any form is not recommended for bird feeding.

She first saw the vultures, an inquisitive pair that she tolerantly chose to name Judy and Punch, on a Tuesday afternoon. But by Wednesday dozens hovered in the increasingly fetid air. Several perched aggressively in her desert willows. “There’s too many,” Mrs. Yakamora said, before making a second mistake of getting a broom and attempting to shoo them.

She became frightened when a cadre of the scavengers, only slightly smaller than condors, began circling very low, hissing, and chasing her about. A particularly vicious one caused her to trip and fall. When she noticed several pieces of decaying pork chop protruding from its beak, she couldn’t suppress a scream. This sound bred of fear must have provoked the creature still further. Only barely did she manage to pick herself up and scurry back into her kitchen. Mrs. Yakamora couldn’t help wondering if she’d been vulture-nipped as she reflectively sipped a cup of her favorite jasmine. She chose that moment to call Matt Lockard at his office far away in Ventura. “Matt,” she managed, “it’s Tumera Yakamora."

He had no idea what had been happening on the other end of the phone line when he said, “How’s the birding going? See any odd species lately?”

She began sobbing before she mentioned Judy or Punch.

“I saw a blue jay in my yard yesterday,” he said, “first one in a while.”

“Matt stop!” she shrieked, “I got vultures!”

“That’s okay,” he said without missing a beat, “You still have Medigap.”

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Mr. McElroy’s Gardening Project

Eighty-two-year-old Nelson J. McElroy took to their backyard garden like oil takes to water. But one day, his wife Patricia observed some alarming portents on the day he finally began a long overdue project. California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard knew exactly what to do.

Nelson J. McElroy’s golden hostas had been holding him hostage all summer long. It seemed like there were armies of hostas in their environs, a redundant beauty on the march. After tolerating the pervasive blooms from his recently purchased lawn chair for as long as he could stand it, while sipping on a glass of lemonade, he decided to get to work trimming the stems. His wife, Gertrude, ambled over. She watched as Nelson squatted on aged bent knees with pruning shears in hand. He mentioned he was feeling a little dizzy along with a twinge of nausea. “I should probably sit down,” he added. As he returned to his chair, Gertrude noticed his left leg having difficulty matching the stride of his right, the left step diminishing like a chimera with every stride.

Nelson collapsed, landing on his pruning shears which were fortunately positioned blades down. “Oh Nelson!” Gertrude heard herself exclaim. Fearing the possibility of a stroke, Gertrude recalled Matt Lockard, a pleasant semi-bearded California Health Insurance agent, the one who’d sold them their excellent Medicare Advantage plan just last year. She herself had utilized their coverage with a hospital stay as recently as May when her gallbladder had acted up. She decided immediately to ring Matt. Thank the insurance God he was there. “Yes,” he said. He always sounded so calm when she spoke to him. A moment later, the decisive Lockard had contacted the 911 operator and ordered an ambulance for the McElroys.
She watched him the entire way to the hospital, terrified but trying to be brave while sitting next to him as he reclined with the tubes already in him on the ambulance stretcher. Every bumpy jolt made her heart race.
Days later in recovery Matt Lockard came to see them both. “How are you doing?” he asked, the question directed at her as well as toward her now responsive husband.

“I had a stroke,” Nelson said, “because of those damned hostas.”

“Stop your cursing!” admonished Gertrude as Matt Lockard barely suppressed a grin.

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The Big Scooter Race

Scooter races can be dangerous, especially in a motor home park for seniors when the seniors are the ones doing the racing. A California health insurance agent prevented the worst carnage: the financial kind.
74-year-old Padraig O’Brien loved to watch those scooter commercials on TV. “You can have your scooter, with no out-of-pocket expense,” the announcer crooned. Like several of his friends at the Elysium Trailer Park in Oxnard, Padraig was otherwise confined to a wheelchair. One day Padraig and several peers purchased dandy electric-powered scooters using their Medicare Supplement insurance policies to help defray their cost. Visiting the Grand Canyon while maneuvering among crowds of tourists on their scooters didn’t appeal to anyone at Elysium, but once everyone had their scooters, something else became evident: the thrill of scooter speed.

“I think we should set up a race track,” suggested Tony Pilano, at 79, a near-octogenarian assumed to be Elysium’s resident sage. Mary Falafel, who spoke Arabic but wasn’t a 73-year-old terrorist, preferring to decorate or draw, agreed. “I can make banners,” she said. She loved to draw nude men.

The race track was set up along the trailer park’s wide walking paths. In preparation for the big scooter race, the “main drag” was clearly marked by Mary’s banners, a few of them rather lewd. Fourteen scooters set to race lined up. Someone had brought a starter’s pistol. The electric hum of racing scooters was vaguely reassuring to many in the crowd of geezer gawkers.

Tony and Padraig jousted for the lead, each rubbing the other like NASCAR drivers. Mary was running a strong third. As her scooter tipped, she reached for what she thought was a convenient handle …
Exactly what occurred in those next crucial two seconds will never be precisely known.

The aftermath featured the friendly California Health Insurance agent dutifully tying up loose ends after the participants had returned to Elysium. Mary brought up what was on everybody’s mind. “Let’s have another race,” she exclaimed. A silence ensued leaving her words hanging in the California air.

A tear formed in Padraig’s eye. “Tony would have liked that,” he concluded.

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.

The Night Rudy Played Tackle

He was the biggest-boned kid in the 16-member Pedroia clan. At age 14, Rudy was downright husky as Pedroias went, graced with good looks and a sturdy physical stature freshly bestowed upon him by puberty. But in the harsh glare of the stadium klieg lights, he weighed only 87 pounds fully dressed in pads and gear, and a California health insurance agent triumphantly emerged as the family’s hero.

Bakersfield’s Rudy Pedroia was a born athlete. At age ten, his father, Randy, first spied his son’s potential. When the kid pranced barefoot in the summer heat, “My boy has an athlete’s foot,” he casually remarked.
Rudy practiced. He knew every play. Fleet of athlete’s foot, the day came when he made the varsity squad. A freshman, the Pedroia’s little star sat on the bench on that fateful night. His wise parents had purchased a child’s individual plan for their son, just in case. Rudy was third-string; at four feet five and 87 pounds, no one beyond the Pedroia clan figured that Rudy would actually play. Still, the entire family watched as they always did. Randy was proud. “He has athlete’s feet!” he would brag to anyone within earshot while attracting looks of mild disdain. Finally Rudy’s big moment came. The home team’s first-string tackle broke an ankle and was carried off the field on a stretcher. The second-string tackle got clotheslined in the groin and nearly lost his tackle. When that unconscious 200-pounder was carted off, the coach looked at the bench and saw … “You!” he barked, “Get in there!” The crowd uttered a collective gasp. “He’s so shrimpy!” somebody’s grandmother screeched. But Rudy knew the plays.

It didn’t really matter. While attempting to trip up the touchdown sprint of a monstrous fullback, Rudy’s outstretched toes served as a launching pad for the opposing team’s end zone. The sound of a Pedroia metatarsal crunching could be heard at the fifty-yard line.

Gathered around Rudy’s bed in his semi-private room where all three of Bakersfield High’s wounded players were hospitalized, only Rudy’s family was smiling. “What?” Randy Pedroia said, “My son has athlete’s feet!” Since they had purchased a teenager’s plan from a California Health Insurance agent, they could afford to smile.

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.