Have you ever gotten a piece of mail addressed to “occupant” or “resident,” that included an “important offer” or “time sensitive information” and contained the greeting “Dear Valued Customer?” Yes, I know, me too. Every time I open the mail I’m assaulted by some cheap “special offering” or “exciting opportunity” from some boiler room asshole who thinks that I’m so stupid that I don’t see through his sleazy crap.

I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but if you want to stay on my good side try not to let me know that you’re aware of that fact. If you want to do business with me please don’t insult the limited intelligence I have left over from the 60’s, and in the future address your communications to me like this:

“Dear Random Dickweed,” or “Dear Pathetic Sucker,” or “You have been carefully selected as today’s sappy ass target for theft, and or fraud,” but please lay off the “valued customer” crap, and while I’m on the subject, lose the ten second delay “Robot Sales Bitch” voice or things will never work out between us. Your mortgage money or storm doors or vinyl siding or camping trailer timeshares will rot on the shelves of retail hell before I will buy anything from you. OK?

About six weeks ago I had a heart attack. I happened to be in the emergency room of the VA Hospital at the time, so there’s a good news and bad news thing there, and it was on the 15 of March so I had the whole “Ides of et tu Aorta” deal going. Until this incident, except for a broken thumb, I hadn’t seen a physician in thirty two years and intended to continue that streak because I’ve found that most people die under the care of a physician.

I guess I was knocked out for about thirty six hours because they gave me too much morphine. They do that intentionally so that you can’t enjoy the buzz, which is another reason I don’t like physicians, they take all the fun out of drug abuse. When I finally awoke I was tied to the bed and thought that I had been arrested by the thought police. Morphine dreams. The nurses told me that while I was out I pulled the breathing tube out of my lungs so they had to restrain me. Whips and chains at the VA?

Thirty two years without a doctor and now I have about thirty two of them. Every morning my hospital room looked like a goddam Junior Chamber of Commerce meeting in Cairo. I know that these people saved my life and I really love them for it but the next bastard who wakes me up at 5:00 am to WEIGH me is getting a serious piece of whatever mind I have left. Notice: Instructions to Bob Higgins’ medical staff: If you have not yet heard the cock crow and are not delivering breakfast just guess my goddam weight. OK?

So here I am, already forced to deal with the combined assault of trash mailers, telemarketers and crooked politicians, and now the fates have beefed up the attacking forces with the combined bureaucratic weight of the Veteran’s Administration and the Social Security System. Try getting either of these outfits on the phone.

The Bush administration has, at last, found a solution to the budgetary crises in both the VA and Social Security systems and it is simple, elegant, and effective, they quit answering the fucking phones. I had been told to call and schedule a stress test, I tried repeatedly for a solid week and all I could get were busy signals and Kenny G and Barry Manilow tapes.

Had they just put a heart monitor on me and sent me home with instructions to: “Call The VA Concerning Your Heart It’s Urgent,” the stress test would have been taken care of right there with me shrieking into the phone while listening to Mandy or insipid saxophone solos and a voice breaking in every forty seconds to tell me in a calming voice that just cranks my rage level right through the goddam roof that my call is “VERY IMPORTANT.”

If I had ever expected to live this long, I probably would have taken better care of myself but now I have the world of modern medicine at my disposal and enough pills to take every morning so that I no longer need breakfast. I take my pills, I’m good til lunch. I felt a lot younger though, before I met my medical team, which is another thing I hate about doctors, they are stealing my youth by forcing regimens and restrictions on me that are more appropriate for old people.

Somebody said once that “gettin’ old ain’t for sissies,” I know what they mean and I’ll probably live to grow older and drag my feet all the way to the grave because I’m young dammit and you can’t make me get old.

The stress test came out all right though, it really wasn’t that bad, kind of like making a phone call.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust