Namaste, Bitches

I'm getting a portrait of Chelsie done for Rob for Yule (from the talented & awesome Moonvoice, of course). It has me thinking about her enough to realize I haven't written about her much.

Chelsie is a Catahoula Leopard dog mix, and she's just over 2 years old. Since we adopted her from an animal shelter, we don't know her exact DOB, only that she was about 4 - 5 months old at the time. We don't know exactly what she's mixed with, either, but the shape of her head, her lines & size make me & Rob think greyhound is probably the most likely candidate. We ought to get her DNA tested, just to find out, but a part of me worries that if we find out she's part pit bull it'll make me like her less.

I've been around dogs pretty much all my life. All the dogs I've known have had character, all of them have had weird little quirks & unique personalities, but Chelsie is without a doubt the biggest character of any dog I've known. Most websites that talk about Catahoulas emphasize that they are working dogs. They've been used for hog & bear baiting, treeing 'coons (they can climb trees) & working cattle and other livestock. They're a feisty, active and intelligent breed who need lots of space and 'something to do'. Chelsie is a pampered house dog. I've worked with her on 'sit', 'lay down', 'shake' & 'high five', and she's housebroken, but that's about it. Her primary job, if any, is to keep Rob somewhat saner than if he was stuck in the house all alone all day while I'm at work. Chelsie's been excellent at that because she doesn't want to be left alone. She can't entertain herself for very long unless food is involved. She needs to be engaged, given attention and has to play with someone. She still acts like a puppy, even though she's a little over two. Most sites say that Catahoulas mature quickly & act like grown dogs before they're out of traditional puppyhood - but Chelsie is definitely not. She's still a big baby.

She needs routine in her life & doesn't do well with unexpected change. We have a dinner routine & a bedtime routine. The bedtime routine's been disrupted since I switched from days to graves, and as a result, the poor dog's been sleeping about 18 hours a day. At 'official' household bedtime, I turn off my computer & the 'ding' of Windows shutting down alerts Chelsie that it's bedtime and she goes out. Rob sets up the coffee pot for when we wake up, we both get cleaned up - brushing teeth, washing faces, going to the bathroom, shaking out bedding. When we're done, Chelsie comes in and gets to pick a rawhide chip from the baggy (it makes her deliriously happy to pick her own chewy chip). Rob lays down w/me & Chelsie starts out w/her chip on her blanket on my bedroom floor. When she's done with it, she jumps on the bed to inspect me & Rob. She jumps off & does a round of the house. She comes back, jumps on the bed for goodnight kisses & jumps back off. She goes into the kitchen to her food bowl, gets a mouthful of food, brings it back into my bedroom, spits it out onto her blanket & eats it piece by piece. She does this like, three or four times before she stays in the kitchen to finish her food. Finally she comes back in, jumps on the bed & lays down. If her second blanket isn't set up on the foot of my bed, she will pull it into place & lay on it. I tell Rob every night is a three-dog night because she gets on the bed three times, every night/morning/whatever bedtime is.

At dinnertime, I set up plates for Rob & myself, and we get the tables set up for eating. Right before I sit down, I give Chelsie a little bit of whatever we're having. If it's something like chicken, she will bring it into the living room piece by piece to eat it. It cracks me up every single time because she does it with her dogfood, too. She's like a hamster or something - stores food in her cheeks for later. If I pick up the pieces & throw them back in her bowl, she'll go get them out again & it starts all over. I'm not about to put her food dishes on the carpet, and mats don't work because she'll chew them or drag them around, so the dishes are as close to the living room as the tiled entryway allows, but she still wants to eat in the same room with me & Rob. She is very good while we're eating, but when the plates are empty & the tables get pushed back, she wants her second helping & will sit and grumble at me until I get up and give it to her. If I ignore her grumbles, she will sit on the couch next to me and put her paw on my arm softly, as if to say, "Please feed me for I am starving to death and wasting away and barely have the strength to lift a paw".

If she's acting like she wants to go out, but really doesn't, when I open the door & ask if she wants out, she runs over to the couch & hops up on her spot. If I persist, by walking towards her, she starts pinning her ears back & waving at me with one paw, like, "please, don't make me go out there!" If I reach for her collar, I get the full-on submissive belly-up roll. Sometimes, if I'm on the couch next to Rob watching Netflix or reading or whatever, she'll act like she wants to go out, and once I get up she runs over & gets into the place where I was sitting. Chelsie has also named me & Rob. Rob is 'hrumph' and I am 'hrumph-hrumph'. If she wants to get my attention, she sits behind me & starts making her 'hrumph-hrumph' noise. It's also how she wakes me up if she needs to go out - standing by my bed with her nose in my face saying, "hrumph-hrumph!" For Rob, since we have separate bedrooms and he keeps a gate in front of his room because he doesn't want to be startled by Chelsie in the middle of the day/night, she will stand at his gate & call to him, soft at first & then louder if he doesn't wake up.

She is a paw-y dog. I can see her working heritage in that. When we play she will hook an ankle with her paw to bring her prey down, and both Rob & I have suffered because of that. She also opens doors & drawers, grabs arms and hands & uses her fifth toe to grasp things as thumb-like as dogly possible. She holds things in her paws to chew on them or inspect them. If Rob & I are holding hands, she will use her nose and paws to pull our hands apart, like we're hiding something from her. If I lay on the floor, belly down, and hide my face in my arms or hands, she will use her paws to move my hands and try to roll me over. If she can't get me to move successfully with her paws, she'll grab my hand in her mouth & try to roll me over that way. I don't know if she thinks I'm in distress or if I'm hiding things in my arms. She just doesn't appreciate me laying face down on the floor & will stop at nothing to get me to move. She treats Rob the same way, which is why he won't lay down on the floor anymore. When she plays, she does this thing where she'll act like she's about to lay down or roll over, with her head on the floor & her butt in the air, and she'll push herself after your feet or toes. I've tried to get photos of her doing it, but she sees the camera come out & runs.

With Rob, she's usually just attached to his hip. Her latest game is to sit on the couch next to him & stare at him until he gives her a dog biscuit. They also play 'lazy man's fetch', where he tosses a ball into the air over her head, she catches it & hands it back to him. It takes place in an area about 2'sq, right in front of Rob's spot on the couch. That's why it's 'lazy man's fetch' - no one has to move, unless Rob mis-throws the ball & it ends up in No Dog's Land, which is anywhere near cables or the bookshelf. She's pretty athletic, though - she'll jump her own bodylength into the air to catch the ball. Rob wears these fitted bandana caps (I always called 'em 'Do-Rags' but whatever) & Chelsie will go to great effort to try and snatch them off Rob's head. She's not a big fan of his long hair, either - if he has a ponytail in, she'll try to snatch that off his head, and she pulls his bangs out of it a few strands at a time.

It's not so much the things she does as it is her overall personality. She's a complete clown & we're completely puppy-whipped.

So, in an effort to save some money, we cut off the cable t.v. Still got teh internets, still got the cable phone because our phone connection is also our modem & cutting off the house phone seemed like too much of a hassle. Just no cable t.v. Turned it off Monday.

In hindsight, already, this was not such a great choice in money-saving methods. Rob's going to lose it soon. He's extremely dependent on that constant background noise and movement. I could live without it, but he's driving me nuts & it's only been like, 48 hours. He's been trying to use the oh-so-awesome digital tuner converter box thingie, and there are a few channels out there actually doing non-cable digital broadcasts. Mostly in Spanish. But, the digital connection is less than ideal, and the sound is skipping. For me, I barely notice it, but Rob is a serious sound-queen. The skipping dialog & music makes him almost enraged. So we've been watching Spanish t.v. with glitchy reception and skipping dialog, and Rob's pissy about the whole thing. When Rob gets to a certain level of frustration, he loses all ability to do anything for himself. Popped The Crow in when I finally got the Windows Media Player to work & it just so happened that the DVD had active content on it, which popped up a Fair Use message. Rob read it aloud to me. All he had to do was click 'Cancel' and the box would go away. Instead he sat there, impatiently waiting for me to finish cooking dinner so I could click a fucking button on his mouse. I don't know if it's some kind of passive-aggressive reaction he's having when he gets like that, or if his parents were the type of people who always took any little task away from him when he couldn't complete it to their satisfaction, but the helpless act makes me angry. I'm going to have to get to the bottom of it, because I tend to take shit away from him or I don't even bother to ask him for help, mainly because I abhor his constant bitching and procrastination.

For the past two nights, I've been trying to get a DVD movie to play on Rob's computer, which was formerly my computer. When I got it, it had Sony VAIO's Media Centre. There's software on that pc that allows you to plug in an actual video-tape-recording camera and edit the film and make movies. When I got it, it would play movies as well. Now, for some unknown reason, it wouldn't play a movie. It had InterVideo 5 on it, along w/Windows Media Player, RealPlayer and QuickTime. Would not play a DVD movie on any of them. So I downloaded the VLC player, the DivX Player, installed codecs, you name it. After much codec hunting, I got sound but no picture. I had hopes when the players would display the FBI warning screens, but then it would either stay on that screen or fade to black. I got it to a point where, with the VLC player, I could watch the movie, hear the background noise, but the main sound track was just gone. VLC is a little too complicated for me. I tried switching all the output settings, using the equalizers, all the bells & whistles included on VLC, including downloading some codecs for it. Sound is still fucked up. Unlike my husband who throws his hands up & pouts when things don't work exactly like they're supposed to the first time, I will figure out a problem like this. I figured if I was able to get a VoIP phone to actually work when I was surrounded by techs who couldn't, then I could figure out a way to make my stupid computer play a simple movie.

After a night and a half of Rob acting completely helpless I paid for a Windows Media Player plug-in. Now it plays the damned DVD movies, and we can watch them on the big-screen t.v. (which is also fucked up, something involving the convergence chip). I uninstalled everything else, including the software that came w/my VAIO for alleged DVD movie playback.

I really couldn't go to bed on time because I was just worked up about his pissy mood tonight. I didn't want to go to bed at the same time as he did because I didn't want to lay down next to him for any length of time. Now, however, my pills are kicking in & I think I can catch 5 or so hours before work.

( Beware: TMI )

3 hours til puppy pick-up! I's excited! It's a pretty good sign that she survived her surgery this morning since the animal shelter didn't call us w/bad news.

Rob's having a bad day today... I truly hope having a dog around will help him. He just sits at home & thinks about his health & his fears. The Catahoulas are supposedly not a 'beginners' dog - they are highly intelligent (people complain about them opening doors), active and hard-headed, very pack-like and will fight for dominance with their humans, so Rob's going to have to be on his toes around her as she gets older. I could use the exercise, so I'm up for the twice-daily walks, even in Summer - she'll just have to wait a little later for her second walk :P

The Pagan Forum I frequent has been shut down for the past couple of days... I'm all annoyed about that, it seemed like an interesting community to be involved in. One of the moderator/owners had a mild heart attack last week & survived, so I hope nothing more serious happened.

Rob's been having anxiety attacks all weekend, which was what prompted his mother to allow us to get a dog. She thinks Rob's spending too much time alone, all pent up in his head & needs someone to talk to while I'm at work all day. Finally Rob's neuroses come in handy for something. It got set off because he wasn't feeling so hot Friday night & his blood pressure & blood sugar spiked really bad. So of course, he started panicking about it, which doesn't help the spike in b.p. & blood sugar, which hypes him up more, so he panics more... it's a nice vicious cycle. So anyway, Rob would really like it if we could get a puppy, a dog to grow up with us & grow old with us.

We got out of the house today, went to the NV ASPCA adoption clinic at the PetSmart up by us. The only puppies they had were pit bulls & chihuahuas - neither Rob or I want either of those. I think of chihuahuas as a potential food source, not as a pet... and I fucking hate pit bulls & the whole pit bull trend. Everyone always says pit bulls are great dogs & they're only aggressive because people make them aggressive, which is true, the same as it is for Rottweilers & Dobermanns, but as far as being a 'great dog' - every pit bull I've ever met has been stubborn, thick-headed and generally stupid.

We had a rough time the last time we got a grown dog from the animal shelter. Ripley, a lab mix (probably mixed w/pit bull but she was very petite & didn't have the dome-like head) was a bad case of SEP (Somebody Else's Problem). She had separation anxiety & would spite-shit all over the house. She ate a brand new pair of tennis shoes, the linoleum in my bathroom, part of my bedroom carpet and the bathroom door. Rob & I were both working so we just didn't have the kind of time to dedicate to her & ended up giving her away to a family w/kids & a yard. A few months after we gave her away, we got another notice from the animal shelter that she'd been picked up running loose & her collar still had our ID tags on it.

We then went to the pet stores in the Meadows & Boulevard malls. I was honestly hoping that Rob would not find a puppy he liked there because, well, mall pet shops are puppy mills. They've cleaned the one up in the Meadows a lot - I was honestly surprised because that place used to look more like a forgotten storage area than a pet shop. It always stank, the puppies were always coughing, the bird cages were usually filthy & the birds always looked more than a little harassed... Now it looks like a brand-new store. Of course, all the puppies were sleeping. Most of them were chihuahuas (again with the freaking chihuahuas, gah!) and a bunch of other yappy little ankle-biters. The Boulevard mall had a few big dogs, like huskies & Malamutes, but I do not support having huskies, Malamutes or wolf hybrids in the fucking desert. We picked up a Nifty Nickel & found someone selling Aussie shepherd puppies... which would have been perfect - except he had docked their tails. WTF?! Why?! If I'm going to buy a puppy, I want the whole puppy! I don't like the tail-docking bullshit, or the ear-docking, either. I've had floppy-eared Dobies in the past, and they hear just fine, thanks.

At any rate, today was a bust. I ended up e-mailing sick to work tomorrow because Rob wants to go to the dr. to talk to her about anti-anxiety meds. Finally! I can also probably get the results of my echocardiogram while I'm at it. I looked around online at the animal shelters here in town... Dewey had no puppies, other than a 6-mo old pit bull. I'm kind of hoping... Lied had a notice of a 3-mo old Catahoula Leopard Hound puppy, a little girl. The last update was on the 1st, so she might be gone already. In fact, she probably is gone already because she's a puppy & puppies usually don't stay in the shelters too long.

I gotta say, I'm just not big on monkey-faced lap dogs or terriers of any size. I don't like wire-haired dogs or sheep dogs. I like dog-dogs. The only small dog I truly like is the Dachshund, because Dachshunds aren't like little dogs, they're more like someone took a big dog & stuffed them into a sausage. But, considering he's going to be spending the most time with it, whatever we get will be Rob's dog, & Rob would honestly prefer a black lab or lab mix. They've got some year-old dogs at Lied's, so we'll check it out tomorrow & see.

1. Sitting in front of the TV, what is on the screen?
I hate almost everything Rob watches. Angel, Buffy, Charmed, SG-1, the endless Star Trek reruns... along with the endless Family Guy, American Dad & Married... With Children reruns. I don't watch much t.v. myself - Rob is a remote control control freak.

2. You're out to eat - what kind of dressing does s/he get on her/his salad?
Italian, some kind of vinaigrette & recently he's discovered the joys of creamy Caesar.

3. What's one food s/he doesn't like?
He won't even try anything with tentacles or suckers. He cannot eat something if it's looking at him, and he fears rare meat.

4. You go out to the bar. What does s/he order?
A dark beer, usually Guinness, but he'll do Heineken Dark or Beck's in a pinch.

5. Where did s/he go to high school?
Somewhere in upstate New York... Middletown?

6. What size shoe does s/he wear?
9

7. If s/he was to collect anything, what would it be?
Anything sharp, pointy & covered in skulls

8. What is her/his favorite type of sandwich?
Chicken parmesan sub

9. What would this person eat every day if s/he could?
Greasy New York-style cheese pizza.

10. What is her/his favourite cereal?
Rob's not a big cereal killer. He'll do Rice Krispies or our favorite generic 'Krisped Rice' w/fruit... sometimes Raisin Bran if he feels the need.

11. What would s/he never wear?
A Hawaiian shirt

12. What is her/his favourite sports team?
Rob hates sports. He believes football would be watchable only if they added zombies and chainsaws.

13. Who will s/he vote for?
He was going to actually register this year & vote for Hillary Clinton.

14. Who is her/his best friend?
Some guy named Eric - not my Eric, & not his best female friend's husband Eric, but this other homeless meth dealer.

15. What is something you do that s/he wishes you wouldn't do?
Call myself old, fat & dumpy

16. How many states has s/he lived in?
4

17. What is her/his heritage?
Hungarian & Yugoslavian

18. You bake her/him a cake for her/his birthday; what kind of cake?
Tiramisu

19. Did s/he play sports in high school?
No, probably because of the aforementioned lack of zombies & chainsaws.

20. What could s/he spend hours doing?
Playing World of Warcraft.
~
Birthday?
January 13

Favorite Song?
Rob's not really a big enough music fiend to have a favorite song. Maybe something by Alice Cooper? Or possibly something off Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

Favorite color?
Black

Favorite Animal?
Rob loves dogs

Dream Car?
A 1965 Oldsmobile 88 with its Rocket 350 engine

Where was he/she born?
Cornwall, NY

Where did he/she grow up?
Well, if you want to consider Rob a grown-up, he spent most of his developmental years in upstate New York

Worst Fear?
Death, closely followed by everything else imaginable.

Biggest Celebrity crush?
Rose McGowan (OMG - she's 2 months older than me. WTF happened to my face?!)

~*~

Who held hands first?
Hold hands? In public? No wai.

What was the first kiss like? (on the cheek, the lips, etc.)
I felt like Rob was trying to eat my head.

Who kissed who first?
I probably did

How did you feel after that first kiss?
Sopping wet w/man drool

Who made the first "big" move?
Me

How did you feel?
Meh. I have sex with lots and lots of people. Rob was pretty much an amateur in the sack. Unfortunately, he's not a fast learner.

How long into the relationship did you umm... do the "deed"?
4 hours?

Are things in the bedroom still 'hot'?
Sometimes.
~*~

How did you meet?
Jody sort of passed him on to me - he kept pestering her at work - he was a security guard at the Excalibur & she worked at one of the consignment shops in their upstairs shopping area.

Where did you meet?
Here in Vegas.

How long have you been together?
Since 1993.

Who asked who out?
Our beginnings weren't like dating, it was more like, "Take me out, feed me, let's fuck, goodnight."

What attracted you to him/her physically?
His Jim Morrison lips and hair.

What attracted you to him/her personality wise?
He's weird. It's still fascinating after all these years.

What attracted him/her to you physically?
My bodacious curves

What attracted him to you personality wise?
I'm easy in so many ways

Are you in love?
He loves me unconditionally - I only love him when I'm drunk

Do you ever think about marrying her?
Been there, done that

What about having children together?
Oh Hell No! We're Childfree-by-Choice - it's not just a reproductive choice, it's a political statement!

Having to fast before a blood test is always uncomfortable. All things considered I did okay at work last night, running on no sleep and no food. I am fucking Night Audit Superwoman. Haven't done it in a few months, went in at 11pm instead of 9 like normal, half asleep, starving, took a lunch break & my two fifteens and still had all the audit work done w/almost an hour to spare. I can do night audit sound asleep & standing on my head.

Me & Rob have done a lot over the past year or so to change both of our eating habits - eating less more often, eating at regular times, etc. It does show - I'm hungry more often & it takes less to fill me up. Rob's doing fantastic with monitoring and controlling his blood sugar... Last night was fast night for bloodwork today. Rob came out from having his blood drawn, went outside & smoked a cigarette while he was waiting for me to finish w/mine - and proceeded to faint in the doorway of the lab. I came out from getting my blood drawn & there he was on the ground w/two nurses & some poor Mexican guy hovering over him, dabbing him w/cool towels & an ice pack. The Mexican guy managed to catch him & break his fall a little but Rob still managed to whack his knee on the wrought-iron chair arm before he hit the floor. Today I'm shopping for a medical alert bracelet for him because a couple of people were offering to call 911 & until I came out of the back no one knew exactly what was wrong with him.

Today is a day of sitting around & playing WoW since I am just whupped.

Not last night but the night before (tommyknockers tommyknockers knockin' on the door), Rob dreamed that I was killing, cooking and eating vipers and cobras. He said I was standing over a large pot, as though making a snake stew. He was (rightfully so) appalled but knew that I believed it was something I absolutely positively had to do, like it was an initiation or powerful ritual of some kind.

I know normally eating a powerful or totemic animal (or an enemy or wise and beloved elder, for that matter) usually means you are absorbing their power and wisdom. Sometimes in dreams, if an animal eats you (especially if it's a dragon or serpent), it can be a sign that they are giving you protection. However, I don't know what it means for an animal if you eat it or someone else in your dream eats it.

It seems to be a common dream theme, at least from what I've seen on teh internets. Most people put all kinds of evil or malevolent associations on the snakes, but I imagine most interpretations are coming from a Christian point of view. Rob's been giving me the hairy eyeball for two days... I cannot kill a snake, period. I would never even think about killing a snake. I'm hoping Ed & Nessie go peacefully in their sleep because I don't think I could even take them to a vet to have them put to sleep when they get too old to be comfortable.

Usually when I dream about snakes it's because Ed and Nessie are letting me know that they are starving and want mice now!

I survived my first day. The office is extremely subdued, and filled with Alliance scum. At the Excalibur, I'm the 'Mistress of Darkness', at the DA's office, I'm 'Carebear' because I play on a PvE server. Plargh! But I've filled out a ton o' paperwork, gotten a badge that doesn't open doors yet, been fingerprinted and spent the rest of the day debugging online templates. And here I figured they'd start me out on the phone since this is a 'Help Desk'.

It's all an adventure & Eleggua & Mama Muerte got their cigars & candles as a thank you. I also got the Better Homes & Gardens Biggest Book of Diabetic Recipes - Rob is excited about it because on the cover is a picture of puff pastry covered in berries & cream.

So I'm pondering deleting this journal since it's been invaded by Work People. But I've invested a lot of time in it. I decided to just change the name & tried to find & delete posts where I've got my full real-life name & all that. If it keeps generating little digs at work during times when I cannot properly defend myself, more drastic measures may be taken. I accept that I do have a public internet life, but this was relatively hidden. I like the new name better anyway.

News of the semi-good: Rob's doc gave him a glucose tester & a prescription for refill strips & lancets. Our insurance covers the lancets, but the strips are $1 each. A 1-month prescription is $100.00. Big-big ouch. So I called the insurance & they gave me a number for the Diabetes Care Network, & if the insurance company & Rob's doc okays everything, all his future supplies will be free. Which is really cool. This company is out of Florida or New York or something, but if anyone knows a diabetic in need, they might be able to help: The Diabetes Care Network 800-881-1845

I hab a code. Yesterday id was id by dose, but dow id has seddled ib by chest ad I ab dot habby.

Well, Rob got bloodwork ordered by the new doc & his results were somewhat startling - his triglycerides are off the charts. 450mg/dll where 150 is the high side of normal. He is what the doctor calls 'pre-diabetic'. No more starchy goodness for him. Of course, it's also up to him to decide on what he wants to do about it, or if he wants to do anything about it at all.

This morning before I went to bed, coming home in the icy chill that is high desert winter, I started thinking about my birth day. I was born early New Year's Eve during a freak snowstorm. It sounds cliche, freak snowstorm, but believe me, any snow in Fontana is best defined as freak snow. Over 18" fell on the San Bernardino Mountains & Victorville got 17" over 3 days or so. The mini-blizzard lasted almost 5 days, ending w/snow flurries in Palm Springs. It's kinda funny because I had a difficult birth, breech & blue. When my dad first took my mother to the hospital, they almost sent her home because she was having 'false labor pains'. The only reason they didn't send her home was because it had started snowing outside & the nurses made the judgment call that it would be better for her to just stay in the hospital over night instead of driving almost 2 hrs home & possibly having to come back to the hospital in the middle of a blizzard. My dad went home after it became apparent that my mother wasn't going to make like a pinata any time soon, and he couldn't get back to the hospital until early on the 2nd of January.

If it hadn't been for the snowstorm, my mother would have gone home & endured a horrible birth, possibly dying in the process. And I wouldn't be here today. So I started wondering to myself, Who is to blame for the storm? And why? Why was either my mother's or my life so important that a snowstorm had to be engineered to ensure my or her survival? It snapped power lines, collapsed roofs & impeded traffic, but no one died... It was just a freak snowstorm. Now, it could all be pure coincidence, but it's one of those things that makes me go, "Hmmm..." And it kinda pisses me off. Sure, a freak snowstorm can be whipped up so I can be born live, but can I ever win Megabucks when it's over $1 million?

I feel bad sometimes because when people are really down, even to the point of contemplating suicide, I never have any encouraging words to offer them. Never can say, "Hey, life is worth living, you don't know what you'll miss out on." All those things to cheer people up & steer their minds away from the pain & suffering that is every day life. I can bolster a person's sense of self-worth, I can inflate egos, I can instill confidence and self-esteem... but I could never work at a suicide hotline. For me, the people calling would be like a suicide tip line. I could take notes on all the plans, survey their potential success rate, choose a suicide plan that best fit my needs and possibly save 15% or more in the process (snork, I kill me). "Hey, call me back after you try it so I know whether it worked or not!"

We were watching ST: Voyager earlier & it was the episode where the doctor got kidnapped by a medical facility. They had a drug that was being used to prevent arterial aging & it was also used to cure a virus or disease. The arterial aging patients were basically wealthy people whereas the virus was an equal-opportunity infectious agent. The medical facility operated kind of like an insurance-run company where so much of the drug was allotted to each level of patients. Well, the doctor didn't like the fact that the drug was being used freely on the one level w/the wealthy patients & was being withheld from the really sick patients, so he ended up giving the main administrator a dose of the virus to coerce him into changing the allottment policies. I looked up at Rob & said something like, "HMO's suck!" because that's what the episode makes me think of & he replied, "What, Holographic Medical Officers?" It was truly a classic one-liner coming from Rob, & I Rofl'd all over the place.