Today I spent part of my day talking to my home and auto insurance agent. Talking to her is one of my least favorite ways to spend time. I do not like insurance, and I do not like her. But it’s that time of year, so it had to be done.
The problem with insurance is that the rates go up every year unless you switch companies, but you can’t switch every year, because it gets progressively harder and harder to find decent rates, plus it takes a lot of time and energy. So usually I put up with the rate increases for a few years, then switch when I finally get mad enough. But before switching, you should at least try what I did today, which was to threaten, politely of course, to take your business elsewhere. If you’ve been with the same agency for a few years, what will usually happen is that the agent will magically find you a cheaper plan that they somehow overlooked before.
Sure enough, my agent pulled a cheaper plan out of her . . . hat. The Magic Plan that she’s offering will save me some money. By dropping the coverage on my car to the lowest possible level, I’ll save a little more. So my time today was well spent, even if it wasn’t fun.
But I hadn’t even had time to celebrate my savings before I got the news that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died today. And before her body was cold and the country even had begun to grieve her, Mitch McConnell had already announced his intention to fill her SCOTUS seat before the election, in violation of everything he’d said when denying the duly-appointed Merrick Garland his SCOTUS seat. Not that we hadn’t known what he’d do, but it was still infuriating. I wanted tell Mitch McConnell where he could stick his announcement, but his voicemail inbox was full, so I sent him a message in the form of a campaign donation for his opponent. It was my way of giving him the middle finger.
I’m not the only one flipping Mitch McConnell the bird tonight, if ActBlue’s numbers are anything to go by. And I’m just getting started. Republicans picked a bad day to piss me off, because I saved enough on my insurance to flip them a lot of birds!
But, though that might relieve some of my anger at Mitch McConnell, it doesn’t do anything for my grief. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an inspiration, and our country has suffered a great loss today. RIP, RBG.