This is how much we love him

Mark and I, like the responsible middle class well trained citizens we are, started trying to acquire life insurance before Zachary was born. It was on that list of things that was less critical than "diapers" but more critical than say "buy a puppy". Sweet. Columbia, thoughtfully, offers a connection with an insurance provider as well as reasonable rates. Hooray! This should be a cakewalk. We print out the awesome forms which ask sixteen thousand ways "Are you dying? Should we know? Have you died before? Please explain". We filled them out. We posted them off. We had a baby.

And waited.

and waited.

And...

In december, mark got a call from a very nice woman whose job involves wandering around the city and collecting blood and urine samples. She's not a vampire. So she did that.

Still waiting. Just at different stages.

Finally about a month ago Mark calls the aforementioned insurance company and says "Hellooooooo, we were trying to give you money......". He also encounters a representative of this company hawking their wares on a neighborhood street corner.

"Hey you! With the baby! You need life insurance!"

(Mark) "Yeah, I've been trying to get it from your company since BEFORE THE BABY WAS BORN!"

(silence).

Turns out they... had individually stalled out, on both requests, at different stages.

(slaps forehead)

The nice lady returned a weekend ago to draw my blood and supervise peeing in a cup. Mark finally got a letter saying "Thank you. You qualify for the standard rate."

No quote. No further directions. No information.


Except that his underwriter is named "Wilhelmena Wigfall".

I wonder if they use pseudonyms, so people can't find them? One can only hope.

Mark called to try to get further information and was given an eight hundred number to query. He called. It was for the National Union of Electronic Engineers.

I hope this is a moment of his dyslexia. Otherwise we're all in trouble.

UPDATE: Several phone calls later and it was established that the esteemed Ms. Wigfall managed to completely fail to pass on the info of her decision on Mark's request. An info packet (may) be on its way.

PPS: After these two most recent disasters it is difficult to know how to give, where to give, what to give... Especially with the countries being Myanmar & China. After a little bit of poking around, we're giving through AJWS (the American Jewish World Service). We're hoping that their past work in Myanmar will help the aid get to the right place.