I am at sixes and sevens this morning. I need to go to the bank and the grocery store- I should go to the Commissary, but the car I am thinking about purchasing is on the showroom floor of the Mercedes dealer by the Harris-Teeter supermarket and the Credit Union.

An important note- I do NOT want to buy a car today….but…the Panzer is six years old and maybe this is time for the Last New Car. That should take me well into the nursing home, which is the other thing I was thinking about, since I am a bit riled up over the matter.

I was up at the usual time in the grey dawn, but allowed myself to ease back into bed after grinding the Russian-roast Dazbog whole-bean coffee with the ancient iPad and killed most of the morning’s incoming messages while still abed.

Then I checked Facebook to see what inane things our cohort is up to this morning and discovered that the daughter of a pal had gotten engaged, on a beach somewhere, and then had to call to see the reaction and walked through the maternal minefield about dates and expense and youth, and that led to a short and cryptic remarks that my former company ran another reduction in force drill just after my hasty exit, stage left, which led to another couple calls, and here I am at noon with nothing whatsoever accomplished.

The other two points to ponder were in the stack of mail I was meaning to look at a couple weeks ago.

I knew one of them had some fine print- hell, they both did- and I picked up the one that dealt with Long Term Care in preparation for the inevitable collapse.

It was a one-time special good deal that was offered on my way out of the government, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. This getting old crap is not for sissies. In terms of health care, I was OK with losing the medical coverage when I got Reduced in Force a couple years ago.

I simply went back to the same single-payer military care dispensed with grim efficiency at Walter Reed. Inconvenient, but always there, so long as the Nation needs warriors.

Turning 65, I discovered to my horror that I was being forced onto Medicare in some scheme that I not only did not understand, but actually cost me money out of pocket for the privilege of not using it. I was highly indignant.

So, in addition to that having to be deducted from the monthly pittance that is Social Security, there was more good news. I read the fine print. The Long Term Care is a stand-alone deal, administered by the John Hancock Insurance people.

The nice brochure informed me that there were certain “assumptions” for my “risk group” and that a certain adjustment had to be made- the monthly premium of $80 was going to have to be increased modestly- by $100!

The plan from the nice people at John Hancock originally had sworn to provide as much as $432K over five years should I need to be institutionalized. I imagine there is an unspoken commitment on my part not to linger longer than the five months, but that aspect is unclear.

The underwriter mournfully announced that the original benefit could only be had at $180 a month, but they were generous, and offered several crappier options, should I wish to exercise them, including one that keeps the premiums the same, but truncates the amount and time of coverage by about a half.

I was mulling the new costs that have entered my life and almost thought about the Convention in Philadelphia, but stopped myself just in time. The Panzer is paid off. Could I deal with a car payment again with the mystery medical bills starting to come in? How does anyone afford all this?

And that led directly to the last order of business. The Mercedes dealership is attempting to entice me to purchase a new GLC300 FourMatic for a remarkable low price, if I act by tomorrow.

I have always been a casual decision maker, and if I did something like that it would be the Last New Car, in this life, anyway. And no robots under the hood or behind the wheel.

I guess we will see about that. Somehow, the title to the Panzer floated out of the folder in the milk crate under the television and is accusing me of infidelity.

I will let you know how it goes…but as a concept, I think it is infinitely preferable to the nursing home.

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com