The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Just before Election Day a major blow hit our area, knocking out power, internet, phones and most remnants of what we like to call civilization.  Five days later, yesterday, the power came back on and we could get the dreaded election results we’d missed.  You know and I know and so does Q that this was no coincidence, this blackout, just another conspiracy to rig the polls while some of us could do no watching, not while we were struggling to stay warm, forage for unspoiled food, haul water and help the neighbors who didn’t have generators whining 24/7 for 120 straight hours.  Who could possibly know what tampering was at play down at the ballot boxes.  Or what last minute Dirty Tricks were being conducted in the electron darkness.

We fully expected the power might never return.  Possibly the entire country was cast into the Bronze Age, the coup Trump had planned for Jan. 6^th nearly two years ago might have taken place, the country might have declared martial law and the Proud Boys possibly confirmed to sit on the bench of the Supreme Court.  The Storm Qanon had predicted had manifested while we were occupied with surviving, little knowing the real occupation had arrived.  The Red Tsunami had swept away democracy as we once knew it.

But … as is usual, paranoia might have some basis in reality, just not most of it.  Our state, Washington state, ‘woke’ that it is, remained mostly blue.  Florida, well, there was your tsunami, with a hurricane close on its heels, headed right at Mar-a-Lago, another embarrassment for the President-in-Exile who refused to heed evacuation notices.  The Red Wave, the one predicted by nearly all the pollsters and pundits, washed weakly to shore.  As of right now, the House looks like it will go red, the Senate, probably a repeat of the Georgia vote, the state that will determine the majority.  From where I sit, power on, lights aplenty, water running, refrigerators working, internet back, phone working … I feel like we dodged some bullets.

If the women who voted based on abortion rights or the kids who voted to save the planet, I thank you.  If you were the dickwad who voted for Dr. Oz or thought De Sanctimonious was the answer to inflation or the Ukrainian war, hello, the country hasn’t gone totally batshit crazy.  Just yet.  Return to your idiot newsfeeds and hope to god your power doesn’t go out for five days.  Stuck with your own fantasies and conspiracy theories, you won’t make it.  Bolt the doors, load your AR-15’s, listen for the zombie apocalypse coming for you.  Exactly what you feared….

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A bunch of us yahoos are gathering for the apocalyptic midterm election returns coming  this Tuesday, masochists all, hunkering down for what portends to be the end of civilization in America as we know it, plenty of liquid courage at the ready.  The pundits are predicting a Red Wave based pretty much on the price of gas and groceries, which are, according to the GOP, Biden’s fault.  No doubt the rest of Europe, the Chinese, hell, the entire world’s inflationary woes are Sleepy Joe’s fault.  That damn Joe!

I’m really not sure why we’re even having elections.  Plenty of Republican candidates have already declared that if they lose, the election was rigged.  If they win, it must be okay, fair and square.  Somehow when Trump lost and plenty of GOP Reps and Senators won in the 2020 fiasco, the elections were both.  Go figure.  My pals are thinking the worst this time around.  The demise of Democracy.  Post truth.  Fascism on the march here in the Yew Ess Aye and around the globe.  Doomsday for the Democrats.  Nothing short of a Proud Boy takeover.  Thank you, Donald J. Trump, for destroying America.

Me, I’m clinging desperately to a longshot  turnout by women and maybe even the younger generation.  I know, fat chance.  But the kids, you’d think with all the existential threats swirling around their little metaverse, they’d intuitively understand the absolute necessity to keep the bootlicking Trumpists from ascending to power.  Although … maybe they’ve drunk the Kool-aid too.  The women, that little agenda of the Supreme Court might have given them some inkling as to what’s coming.

Course, in the era of social media, all bets are off.  Black is white, good is bad, truth is bullshit and vice versa.  I don’t have a clue anymore.  Folks just believe what they read and see on their bubbled sites and only read and watch the sites they want to believe.  Maybe the Storm is coming.  Maybe Q is on the way.  Maybe Jesus is orbiting the planet, planning a Grand Entrance.  Maybe gravity is faux science.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s true that we get the leaders we deserve.  All this evolution to produce big brains and it comes to this, just chimps who invented the internet and the computer, then used them to make themselves stupid.  Serves us right….

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Okay, so I got my 3^rd Covid booster, and yeah, I know, probably Bill Gates’ tracking devices too, but I’m willing to throw the dice, take my chances and see if I can keep from contracting Long Haul Covid in my advanced geezerhood.  Thought while I was at it, I’d take the flu shot too.  Being careful about money, if not nano-trackers, I googled up Medicare to see if they covered flu shots and yah, shure, u betcha, they did.  Except when I made an appointment at one of our local pharmacies, they said they couldn’t find my Medicare Advantage program that would cover it.  But … the nice man at the counter said since I’d made a reservation he’d discount the copay and once I got my correct card, they’d refund the money.

Maybe you know where this is going….  They’re NOT going to refund any money and my good friends at United Health, a nice woman who can speak English but not very well, told me they do not cover flu vaccinations.  What the &%@#?  Last year’s flu vaccine was covered, but by a different pharmacy.  You tell me….

What I think, other than feeling duped for 70 bucks, was how impossible it seems to navigate our best-in-the-world health care system.  This is enrollment time in case you missed getting three or four calls per day from potential future healthcare providers.  If I thought it would help, we’d change to one that offered flu shots … but of course they’d probably be the one that had a higher co-pay or hidden fees or worse premiums.  If I was a Philadelphia lawyer with a medical and pharmaceutical degree, one willing to read the terms of agreement of multiple providers, compare the apples and oranges with the melons and bananas, sure, I’d switch over every damn year just to see if I could get a preventive care vaccination for free.

With only so much time left of my Golden Years I thought maybe I could spend that research on something, oh, slightly more enjoyable and far less maddening.  Next year I’ll probably just take my chances on the flu.  If I come down with a case of it, maybe then I’ll read the fine prints of these world class health care providers while I’m recuperating.

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