UNRAVELING MEDICARE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (11-15-25)

     I'm going to be retiring at the end of this year, and I'll be moving off my company's health care plan and onto Medicare. I've been reading up on things, and as a public service, I'm going to review the different elements of Medicare with you, so you can simply concentrate on getting injured. Part A is for hospital coverage, what you'll use if I back into you with my car, because I can't get the hang of using the back-up camera. Objects in my mirror are closer than they appear, and yet objects in my rearview camera are farther than they appear. So it's not my fault that nothing is as it appears. Luckily, all your tests at the hospital come out okay, except for math. 

     Part B covers doctor visits, medical equipment and preventative checkups, the physical therapy for your foot, which I ran over when I put the car in drive after I backed into you. Part D is for drugs, in case my explanation starts to give you a headache. Part C, or "Medicare Advantage," may cover many things the other parts don't, such as vision, dental and hearing. If there is a hearing after our accident, you'll be able to hear it. 

    My wife thinks my own hearing is shot, because she says she asked me to take some crap up to the attic, and I never did it. "I probably just didn't hear you," I postulated. She said, "I asked you in a text." I told her she's just projecting her own desires onto me by telling me I can't hear, because she secretly wishes that my constant chatter might bypass her ears and go straight into outer space, where the audio waves could be picked up by inhabitants of distant planets wondering whether they should visit Earth, and it would help justify their decision not to.

     The last thing I would want to do is visit an ear, nose and throat specialist who is straight out of medical school and inexperienced. The only thing ears, noses and throats have in common is that they are all holes in my face. It would be easy for a new doctor to make a mistake. "Okay, I'm going to put this tongue depressor all the way in, and when I give the word, you say 'Ah.' Okay, NOW." "Doctor, you put the tongue depressor in my NOSE."

     When I go for the hearing test, there is a four-page form that I must sign. It describes all the things that will probably happen to me during this procedure, including dismemberment, death, and the deaths of those in my immediate family. If that doesn't do the trick, there will be torture. At the end of the form is a little check box and a place for my signature, and a sentence that says, "YES. In fact, I'm surprised I didn't think of it myself."

     If they offered a "rewards card" for my healthcare group, I would sign up for it immediately, because I'd be eligible for quantity discounts. Every time I run from the baseline to the service line on the tennis court- and it's more like a waddle than a run- the cartilage in one joint or another fails, a ligament snaps, a tendon tears, sometimes all at the same time. There appears to be no cartilage left in any part of my body except for my brain, where there are no moving parts.

     If you're shopping for part C supplemental insurance, it's easy to figure out the best plan: the higher your deductible, the lower your premiums. The fewer covered services, the higher the co-payments. The more in- network doctors, the lower the maximum benefit. If you'd like all of these things at once, your physical health will be far better than your financial health.

     I went to the orthopedist for my wrist, which has so much arthritis that he likened it to the Colorado River carving out the Grand Canyon. He said there was nothing much he could do about it. I said, I know, it's been there for thousands of years. But what about my wrist? He said, there is a surgical fix, in which he removes two bones, which he pointed out to me on the X-ray. They were about an inch long, and when I asked him what he was planning to put in there instead, he said nothing. Nothing? Can you at least put a piece of Lego, or some rubber bands in there to take up the space? Can't you graft a ligament from my butt and screw it in there? We've become spoiled by the advances in medical science.

     The majority of healthcare providers honor Medicare, but if your Part C plan supersedes Medicare's, you may have to poll your physicians to find out if they are included. I asked my doctor if he was in my network, and he was, but apparently the doctors got together and kicked ME out of the network. There are a lot more doctors from faraway places now. I was referred to a Dr. Ngflstrnqlzian, and when I asked how that was pronounced, I was told just how it's spelled. Emigrating to the United States to escape the tyranny of a regime that outlawed the use of vowels in the year 1043, his expertise will now flourish. 

     I hope this has helped you make informed decisions regarding your medical care. Remember to activate your plan during "Open Enrollment." If you do so during closed enrollment, it's considered breaking and entering, and you'll have to co-pay a fine.

NO GNUS IS GOOD NEWS

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (10-23-25)

     We recently went to a zoo that began like most other zoos, but didn't end up that way. I'll get to that. The Wild Animal Park in upstate Chittenango starts out with a walk through the various habitats, where animals can observe the odd behavior of humans and learn what not to do. 

     We started out at the caprine introductory reception area (I made up the title), where behind the fence frolicked a herd of goats of Biblical proportions. You couldn't call it a plague because they are so cute. A plague is like when I was in Egypt and an army of frogs emerged from the Nile unto the land, and wouldn't you know, I JUST washed my car. My wife insisted that I throw the food to the scrawniest, puniest, loser-est goat, the one who was definitely not the G.O.A.T. He was probably wondering why I hit him with a food pellet so many times, and the answer is because I was not aiming at him.

     There were several different types of monkeys, and you could watch their clowning behavior all day. There were spider monkeys, capuchins, baboons, and even two medium-sized titis, and let me tell you, that was quite a pair. There were big cats of many varieties. I've heard it said that cheetahs never prosper, but after all they were wearing fur and it looked real. There were tigers, lions, and even a leopard was spotted. There was a giant anteater, a most useless creature, since at my house the ants are very small.

     There is a platform where you can walk up, face a giraffe on its own level, and feed it a carrot. Everyone knows that the best way to a giraffe's heart is through its stomach, but it's also the most time-consuming. I couldn't wait, so I just assumed that my giraffe loved me based on some eye-contact that we shared. Our trip here was in early September, and there were many baby animals in the zoo at that time, including a newborn giraffe. So plan accordingly if you like babies, and you don't mind that they might eat you when they grow up.

     You can learn all kinds of things about the animals by reading the signs. Did you know that the gibbon mates for life, and sings a special song to the female? When we were there it sang "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe," by Barry White, so monkeys are not stupid. At the sika deer exhibit I learned that "sika" is Japanese for "deer," which is as self-explanatory as saying "people person." The southern ground hornbill has a low, hooting call that it repeats over and over and can be heard for miles, prompting its Mom to say, "That's ANNOYING."

     For an extra fee you can have a personal encounter with a sloth, and learn all about him. For instance you may be wondering, what is the difference between a two-toed sloth and a three-toed sloth? You can spend two hours with a him and he'll show you, after which time you are essentially dating.

     But the craziest part of the zoo was yet to come: a safari in your own car! The fellow at the ticket counter saw the bicycle on my car rack and asked if it was going to be okay. I said, of course, but then I had a vision of a mob of emus unlatching the two-wheeler and riding around terrorizing the other animals, and all of a sudden I wasn't so sure.

     Armed with four red Solo cups filled with wild animal food, we lit off on our journey around the 14-acre grounds. We got as far as 25 feet before the road was blocked by huge cattle with horns the size of traffic cones sticking straight out from the sides of their heads. If they actually were traffic cones we might have known not to drive in that direction, so we were stuck there until they dispersed, since it's impolite to honk at wild animals, and useless to check in on Waze.

     My sister Anne lives in the area and has been to the zoo many times. She knows how to get the most amusement for her buck, so she had us open all the windows, and she would point us all in one direction to look at something harmless, say, a zebra, and when we turned back around there was a gargantuan bison head two inches away from my own inside the car window, scaring the living daylights out of me so much that they weren't living after that. 

     Then the game was on, and elk, asses, llamas and buffalo were chasing those solo cups like a foam-starved fratboy following a frothy firkin. One camel dogged me as if I owed him money, which is entirely possible. We were laughing so hard even the hyenas told us to shut up.

     If you're a fan of the creatures we share the Earth with there is no better way to spend your day. My sister Diane loves animals so much that she said she helped an earthworm across the street, which I believe. She stepped on three others during this act of kindness, but it's the thought that counts. I am also a friend to all animals, and I couldn't bear to kill a spider that was in my basement. Instead, I trapped it using an internet scam, then paid for two years of group therapy, and now it works at MacDonalds.