Michael found a painful lump in his mumble mumble area, so we went to the doctor. And the doctor did an ultrasound on his mumble mumble and it showed something weird, so the doctor referred Michael to a specialist of mumble mumbles. But this particular doctor was 'out-of-network', which is insurance speak for 'we-are-gonna-screw-you-hard'. And the specialist doctor said not to worry, Michael's mumble-mumble is fine but if it gets really painful, he can remove the source of the pain upon securing a credit report and a share of ownership on our first born child. And Michael had to go for a follow-up test at a hospital, and that test showed that everything truly is fine. And so Michael doesn't have cancer and still has his dignity (sorta), and we're all happy. Except that Michael's mumble still hurts from time to time.

Then we got a bill from our insurance, which indicates that two ultrasounds and a magnetic imaging test actually comes to a total of 1.5 million dollars, and we have to pay about half of that based on our insurance policy. Now, of course, we are completely and wholly to blame for this deductible because I refused to join the 'Quit-the-Nic' program to receive better benefits. Yes, that's right, the insurance company grabbed my ovaries by my fallopian tubes and told me that in order to get decent insurance, I had to quit smoking because people who smoke are obviously not worthy enough of fair pricing. And I did go on several rants over the phone about how insurance companies should not legislate lifestyles because, after all, they don't cover jackshit anyway and if I do get lung cancer, it can't be correlated to JUST smoking, it could have to do with eating lead or breathing in methane and when I mentioned this to the insurance agent, she told me that Blue Cross does not cover alternative medicine for cancer.

But Michael just got on the phone and talked turkey to some chick and got the bill reduced to $20. Which is great. It just proves that not only are insurance companies biased against smokers and drinkers and drug-users, insurance companies are also sexist.