Mosquitoes

There is a place I sometimes go called,  “Tamela's Place”, where I would find "encouragement, grace, joy faith, hope and love", all things I often need.

One time she wrote about ducks. Well, not about ducks literally, but about allowing offenses to roll off our backs like water off a duck, a very wise point.  You can't duck (pun intended) all the offenses thrown against you. However, if you carry those slights around with you, you will drown under the weight.

She quoted Jesus in Luke 4:18-19: “That the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Jesus himself was reading from Isaiah 61:1-2.)

She went on to discuss the meaning of "brokenhearted" and “heartache”. I'm sure we've all been there. Things happen to us all. We face disasters and setbacks and suffer great pain.  We recognize these things easily when they are big. And sometimes these big things bring us closer to God.

There is another kind of attack, and I believe it is directed by Satan, where we let our guard down because it is not involving heartache or the roof caving in. It is little annoyances, inconveniences; what I am going to call mosquitoes. Yet, added up, these little insignificant insects can take you off your game, even disrupt your relationship to the Lord.  This happens to me sometimes and that is when I need those things that Tamela offered on her website.

You know how disruptive mosquitoes can be. You want to sit outside on a lovely, cool summer eve, perhaps enjoying a bar-b-que and here come the mosquitoes. You swat at them, maybe kill one, but there are always others close behind and their bites will cause irritations on your skin that you can't stop scratching for days. This can ruin your little cook out.

I've been swarmed by mosquitoes at times. Let me give examples so you understand. Although some may seem inconsequential, even comical, believe me, they led to a distracting rash, and you know there is always a danger of out-an-out disease from mosquitoes.

Buzz, bite ---

I go to trim my yard. I have an electric weedwacker with easy-feed cutting braids, twisted nylon that slips through holes in the spinner. Except the last tube of replacement braids I purchased are too thin. When I turn on the trimmer, the braids simply spin right out of their holes.

So I go to Sears to find thicker braids. I find these nice plumb black ones (mine are green) that I think will do. I go to pay and the salesman says it would be cheaper in the long run to buy a reel then snip off braids to length as needed and have many more than the tube holds. Okay, so we go and he picks up a reel and I point out the particular trimmer I have as it is hanging right there. "Oh", he says, "this won't fit that. I thought you had a gas powered one, not electric. Here are the only ones that will fit the electric trimmers." He hands me a tube of green ones, just like I have. I explain these are too small, so he gives me a tube of red braids. They are thicker. I pay the five bucks, bring them home and they spin right out of the holes as well. I should have gotten those black ones even though the sales person said they wouldn’t fit.

I know. Why am I whining? Such a small thing. No big deal. No, it isn't by itself. But added to a swarm of little bug bites, it takes it toll.

Buzz, bite --

We had some financial set backs during that particular summer. A diseased tree had to come down for safety sake and cost us $2,000 and medical tests for my wife which cost almost as much (I'll get to that later), and next month my property-school taxes are due.  We don't really have much money. Those kind of expenditures really hurt and cause problems with the cash flow. How to I ease the pipeline a bit?

Well, my newspaper payment was due at the beginning of that month. I have always paid it for the year, but that is over $200. If I pay it monthly, it runs a bit more over the year, but eases my current cash crimp. I don't want to worry about the payments, though, so I call the paper to setup E-Z pay. With this, they automatically bill my account each month for $17. I added a three-dollar tip, making it $20 a month.  Three days later, the first payment is taken out, $211. Their billed me for one year plus the tip I added. Now they have messed up my cash flow plus made me look like a real cheapskate, a three dollar tip for the year!

I called them up and explained. I was told they would credit my account for the difference and I would then be billed the $20 a month.  I called them on the 7th of the month. I called them twice more. I still hadn't received my credit and they kept telling me it will come in three or four days. I would leave it paid for the year, but now I was concerned they will also begin billing me the $20 a month and I'll be double-billed.

Buzz-bite --

I got a threatening letter from the accountant of my wife's cardiologist. The one who did those recent tests on her. It said I was seriously in arrears on payment and I better pay up or else.  This made me angry. We pay our bills and on time. Here is what happened.

Our primary physician sent my wife for a stress test, a pretty normal type thing for people of our age. The cardiology place ran the stress test, told me wife she had a blockage and she needed further testing post-haste. She had to get an x-ray. They then told her the x-ray indicated blood wasn't flowing in part of her heart. She had to get a heart catheterization immediately. They said it was urgent she do these things. This had her a nervous wreck. All these things were done within one week. They arranged it all. At the end of the week my wife had the catheterization as an outpatient. No hospital stay, just the test.

Then they told her everything was fine, no blockage, no blood flow problems, she was perfectly healthy and they presented bills totaling almost $15,000 (that's correct, three zeros on the end). Of course, the Medicare took care of most of this, but we still paid nearly $1,500 out of pocket. (There may not have been blood flow problems, but there sure was a cash flow problem. Yes, my wife was healthy, but our bank account was feeling sickly.)

However these bills did not come on one sheet of paper. They dripped and dribbled their way here. I paid them as they came. However, one bill for $71 got overlooked. Why, because it was billed earlier on one I had paid in full, except on that bill they showed no charges for certain procedures, but when I saw this bill repeating the same procedures I believed I had already paid, I didn't take notice of the change of zero due to $71. Thus a bill I received dated July 11, I actually didn't send with a payment until August 13. Hardly being seriously in arrears in my book.

So why the threatening letter?

Buzz, bite --

The payment I sent came back to me as postage due - 1 cent.  That means the recipient, the cardiologist, had refused to pay the one-cent to get the letter. It meant my payment became even later in being received.  Was this because I misjudged the weight of the letter? Nope, it was well under an ounce and I put a first class stamp on it. One of those "forever stamps" the post office began issuing in 2007 when they raised the postage once again. It was said these stamps would be good even if the postage went up again so you didn't have to be bothered with buying a bunch of one-cent stamps.  

I was so mad I drove to my local post office to complain. The clerk (I think he was probably the supervisor) told me what I had wasn't the "forever stamp". Well, when I bought these stamps they told me they were. They had no price on them like stamps used to have, so why would I disbelieve the United States Post Office, "an official agency of the United States Government", when they said they were?

So the man at the post office put a penny strip on the bill and mailed it again, then sold me twenty one-cent stamps.

Now one little side note, as I waited in line at the Post Office, there was a couple at the counter with the exact same complaint. They had several pieces of mail returned to them for insignificant postage and they also had been told the stamps they used were the "forever stamps" when they purchased them. See, it wasn't just me having a senior moment.

Buzz-bite, buzz-bite, buzz-bite...yes there are several more. The TV, phones and Internet not working, the fact that my computer crashed and burned that month, a distraught daughter, other things of like nature, each of which if spread out over a long period of time would be annoying, but minor. Together within a few weeks, one after another, they are debilitating to normal life. There are too many to keep listing, but I will give one more.

Buzz, bite --

Midnight, my son is standing outside in our carport. (He smokes and always goes outside to do so since none of the rest of us engages.) The cops pull up and shine their flood on him. They tell him they have a complaint from a neighbor that our dog has been barking continuously for two hours. 

My dog was 17 years old and could not walk unaided. He had to be carried outside to do his business. He was never outside more than fifteen minutes, if that. As soon as he barks, we go out and bring him in. We have never allowed him to be continuously barking. 

We had a similar complain five years ago. In that instance, people two doors up from us had left their dog in the back yard and it had barked the whole day and evening. It wasn't our dog.  Neither was this time our dog. The next night we heard a dog continuously barking from the next street over at a house with the same street number as ours. We think either the complainant or the police got the wrong street.

I called the police and they were nice about it, but said they could do nothing. If there were a serious of complaints, then they would investigate if they were legitimate or not. It is so frustrating to be falsely accused.

Anyway, this is why I needed that encouragement, peace, joy, faith, hope and love offered at Tamela's Place.