Package Plan

Life is a package plan and good comes with bad.

I looked dismally at my tax return, wondering how it was possible to owe additional taxes and thinking that somehow I've gone badly astray in these late years.

My ten year old car has developed an intriguing knock/click when I turn corners and the telltale oil stains on the pavement after a day of being parked are a bad omen.

I scrounge change out of the washing machine for a pack of cigarettes and wish desperately for the urge to quit.

The latticework needs replacing, the back deck is in need of repairs, the fence is standing but several boards are on their last legs, the grass needs cutting and the azaleas ought to be cut back before they overwhelm and engulf the front steps.

A back tooth is making the journey from nuisance to problem and I dare not even open the current vet bill.

I have nightmares that my decision to decline health insurance will return to haunt me.

The big picture isn't much better - treachery is just another name for politics, the profiteers of Wall Street and the insurance CEO's continue to rake it in unregulated and federally protected, the ultra conservative right makes war on everyone and anyone who disagrees with them. Guns are now a fashion accessory.

It's getting hard to tell who's in sorrier shape, me or the world I live in.