Better Safe Than Sorry With Wife Insurance

From the Evansville Courier & Press and the Meade County Messenger, July 2006

I have to keep the wife alive for at least a few more days.

Hopefully, she'll live several more decades and she'll see me grow old and incontinent and cranky enough to sit on the porch to throw apples at neighbor kids. But if she has to go early, hopefully it's after the first of the month.

That's when her first-ever life insurance policy goes into effect. After that, if something bad happens, such as a wolverine attack, I'll be inconsolable -- but I'll be rich.We got hitched a couple of weeks ago (it was a nice ceremony, by the way, other than some confusion on when I may now kiss the bride and some profane drawings on my car made of whipped cream and M & Ms; as for the honeymoon, the Big Apple is a peach).

So I just turned in the paperwork to change my benefits after that "qualifying life event," as the insurance company suits so sweetly call holy matrimony. For the first time, she'll have vision, dental, health.

Not only is her life insured, she can get her teeth cleaned.

And if she accidentally catches the bird flu -- provided it happens next month -- I'll be able to afford to give her a proper memorial.And maybe to buy a yacht with a plasma TV.

I'd better call her and tell her to be extra careful, at least for a while.

Shoot. She's not answering the phone. I hope she's OK.

I could have had my wife insurance go into effect today, but I put it off because I'm cheap as a Times Square hot dog.

I was gonna go home for the weekend, but now we'll probably stay here. Maybe I'll go pick up some movies, and I'll let her sit on the couch so she can, um, rest. Better safe than sorry, when it comes to rest.

Come to think of it, I shouldn't have let her cut the cake -- that knife was sharp. I shouldn't have let her get on the plane to New York. Or ride the subway. Or offer to go get me some ice cream in the middle of the night from Hell's Kitchen.

Heck, she could have choked on one of those black and white cookies, or broken her head trying to get her mouth around a giant Stage Deli sandwich.Wow, I just remembered I need to change the batteries in the smoke detector.

It'd be a tragedy to lose her now, not just because she's still uninsured but because we just got some killer new appliances. Honestly, you haven't lived until you've had toast that gets warm uniformly. So that's not how I want to strike it rich. Losing a pinky toe for accidental death and dismemberment insurance, that wouldn't be too bad.

Losing a wife, that would be tragic. Not as tragic if it happens after the first of the month.

But pretty tragic.

Columnist Jacob Bennett will buy you a diamond ring if it makes you feel alright. He may not have a lot to give but what he got he'll give to you from jacobmbennett@hotmail.com.