Fat rant.

Trigger warning, I have opinions.  I wanna talk about weight. 

When I Google-imaged plus size model,
this is the first image that came up.

A little background info:  My mom’s side of the family (and my sis) have always been skinny people with willowy bodies.  Not that they haven’t had to do work along the way, but their resting state is kind of Olive Oyl.  My dad’s side and I have not.  We're more Bluto.  I don't think I was obese as a child exactly, but I did get made fun 

of at camp for carrying around a spare tire.  I was in Jenny Craig in 4^th grade—and I liiiiiiied to those people about what I ate, I lied so hard.  I liked to eat, I loved ice cream, and you could rip the rest of the cheeseburger from my cold, dead hands.

I always thought I was problematically fat.  I wasn’t skinny, though I was skinnier than people I know who are like, you don’t even know what overweight is.  I want to be respectful of that.  

So for my experience, I was chunky but I’m not talking about even how I looked in a mirror, or what I weighed. I’m talking about what I believed.  My pediatrician told me I was going to be

Do you know what that word means?
I suggest googling the definition,
but here's a sample of the Google-images.
It's weird, too, cuz I was never that skinny...

lascivious.  I didn’t know what that word meant, but looking it up as an adult makes me feel…some type of way.  I was like 10, and to be honest, at the time, his tone meant I wasn’t gross and I didn’t need to panic, and I found it comforting.  We live in a hell of a world.  Anyway, I just knew I was overweight, period, and I knew that wasn’t a good thing to be.  I was never a sporty child (because don’t tell me what to do, and your costumes are dumb), though I did basically live in the woods until the great spider infestation.  I would do the mile run at school, or join the track team—and I’d do it, I’d run.  Slowly, but I would finish.  I was not competing with anyone.  But I still liked to eat, and a runner’s body is not what I had.

This girl is a badass, but her body is v different from any I've ever had.

I have a clear memory of a friend of mine, a girl I adored in middle school, who was maybe not the skinniest person on the planet either though perfectly healthy—my doctor would have called her inappropriate names too—and among other things, we bonded over that.  Also over having big old boobs, which came in early and hard and I had no idea what to do with.  

We left normal behind in like...6th grade.  We ran a mile+ every week in P.E.
 in middle school and I didn’t even have a bra,
much less a sports bra.
I *did* develop some killer stretch marks, though.

And one year for her birthday (for her effing birthday, Reader), I, me, this girl right here, orchestrated our friends group stuffing her locker to celebrate—and I got her nothing but diet snacks.  Low fat weight loss everything.  I remember that I got her a lot cuz she was like my best friend.   I remember walking by her, in front of her locker as we were all on our way to first period, and she was sobbing.  I remember she said to me, her friend, “Look what they did!” and I was like, “HA HA RIGHT?!……Wait…” and only then did I realize that I was a garbage person.  Also, because I was a dumb garbage person, did I apologize?  Not that I remember.  I remember being ashamed so never wanting to talk about it again.  Garbage.

Seventh grade is 12 yo. 
I Googled 12  yo and this
was the first thing that
happened and it makes
me want to burn the world
down.

I had thought I was funny, and edgy, and bonding,
(I seriously thought I was bonding, what is wrong with me) and I made her cry on her birthday, because we should all just accept that this is our lot as people with some jiggle in our middle circa seventh grade.  It is an appropriate topic of conversation.  It is what we deserve.  It is fine—chin up or put down the pie.  At least you’re lucidious.  (There is a chance he said lubricious—I was young and didn’t know the word—but adult-googling-me roots for the former, not the latter.)

Speaking of, when I got boobs, I started showing them off.  I have…never?...known how to dress, and certainly not for my body type.  This is the style of shirt that is in, I will wear it.  The style of shirt that is "in" has never been made for people with big boobs and a spare tire.  I wore it anyway.  I thought it was how to be pretty, meanwhile I was ashamed every time I looked in a mirror, and btw just showing off all my business.  In modern days, I have been known to shop at modesty stores online,

It is amazing what some sexual assault
will do for your desire to go unnoticed
as a female person in possession of a body!

because what I got is none of your business, and God forbid I get a comment or even catch you looking, because you will go to the hospital and I will go to jail and with a couple simple ensemble choices, I can avoid the whole situation for both our sakes.  

And while I have always been on the runs-to-fat side, with the time-proven capacity to achieve that state, I am not hugely over weight.  Have people asked me when my baby is due at, say, the auto parts store?  Yes.  When I gain weight (which I do, on and off, to a greater or lesser extent) it all moooostly goes to my gut.  Part of this is because the term “beer belly” isn’t just cutely alliterative.  Part of this is genetics.  We are barrel shaped, on my side of the family.  But also when I decide to start paying attention, I can get healthier—I can run, slowly, but for long periods of time, and not hate it.  I can maintain caloric intake goals, and lose weight.  So my story is, sure, real and valid or whatever, but doesn’t begin to represent the experiences of people who have struggled much more with their weight and the weight society adds to it for their lives.

But we're still calling *this* plus sized.

All of which leads us to what I wanted to talk about today, Reader, in this, the unfunniest of posts.  Obesity is not a character flaw.

Obesity is not a character flaw.

Obesity is not a character flaw.

I have been suuuuper rabbit holed on my microbiome research, and learned some interesting things relevant to this point.  Once you have a gut colony set up that processes food in such a way that it

I highly recommend
this book.

stores more fat and wants more sugar, it is hard to change.  Turning the boat takes long term, concerted effort.  Your gut bacteria tell you to be hungry, and what to crave.  They do or do not process the food you eat well.  Obese mice and lean mice, given a fecal transplant (the easiest way to quickly change your interior ecology) will change how they process their food.  That means lean mice, given an obese mouse’s gut bacteria, will gain weight based on the colony that lives inside them, not just the food they eat.  The way to bring them back to baseline depends on what you feed them—but not just the calories.  The same calories, in different formats, will cause them to lose or gain weight.  It’s about the gut bacteria you allow to thrive, versus the ones you starve out. 

Which sounds like something you could do, right?   But what do you do?  Keto, gluten free, paleo, South Beach?  Just starve yourself?  Don’t ask your doctor—most physicians spend years and years in doctor training, and of that, they get less than 20 hours of diet and nutrition training.  You can go to a nutritionist, but your insurance won't cover that-- or not much.  A couple visits.  Are you going to ask the internet how to properly lose weight?  Cuz the opinions—there are many, and they are loud.  Everyone’s answer is The Right Answer.  Not that there is no answer, not that it’s impossible to do, but finding the way that works for you, and your life.  Is.  Not.  Simple.  

It is not that GD simple.

Plus as you starve those bacteria out, they feel like they’re starving, and they have ways of making you feel like you’re starving too, that have nothing to do with how many calories you actually consume.  I think this is an especially heavy burden if those particular microbes are taking up a lion's share of the space in your gut.  My point is, we treat weight control like it’s a simple will power check, when it is much more than that.

Does this mean that the only answer is microbiology?  I wish, because I love that stuff.  

Fecal transfers for everyone!

But no, of course—calories in v calories out makes a difference.   

It’s just not a cut and dry difference—my experience of losing weight is not the same as the experience of someone else, esp someone struggling with more obesity than me, and not because I’m just sooo good at making good choices.  I hardly ever make good choices.  And for many of us, those choices were made for us, way before we understood what was going on, or after we were already in

But I still knew I was fat tho.

 a situation where “I know this processed high calorie meal isn’t the best but it’s cheap and available and satisfies me and making my own bread and buying better quality cheese is not going to happen because life.”  My mom put me in Jenny Craig but when life happened, it was Dominoes’ for dinner cuz that’s just where we were. 

In mainstream (and to be clear, I mean white; I can’t speak to POC) society, we absolutely treat overweight people like they are slobs in their character as well as their habits.  We do double takes when we see skinny people with fat plus-ones, because—I mean she can do better than that, right?  He must just be weirdly into that…right?  We say, don’t make me see that, your body, and we mooostly are talking about women, though men come under the societal-judgement-gun as well and it cuts deep too. 

I’m not saying obesity is healthy, that’s not the argument I am trying to make.  Being overweight or obese has all sorts of very real negative health outcomes.  I promise you, every overweight person knows this. 

We got you this. 
It's from everyone.

I’m saying the conversation we are having usually isn’t a conversation about health.  I know thick people that are healthier than the skinny people I know.  They have spent their lives thinking about the nutritional content of their dinner, and tracking their exercise.  I know plenty of skinny people who are so focused on how “you can never be too thin” that every time I see them, all I can think is that they need to eat a pizza.  We judge fat people—even me, even jiggly, fat, asked-if-I’m-pregnant me!—and it’s not about health, it’s about shame.  We don't side eye people eating lunch because we're trying to help them.  I think if we were more focused on health, then your doctor might have more to say to you than “lose some weight and exercise” (which by the way, the insurance companies make them say to you no matter how your labs come back) and there would be better marked trails to get from overweight to ideal weight.  It’s not so easy to find your way, alone and judged and not sure it’ll make any difference anyway.

Also healthy, sustainable weight loss is slow af and you can be right in the middle of a years long process, feeling like you are starving,  and STILL have strangers tell you you’re fundamentally a wrongbad person or be shocked to know you possess a single healthy habit.  

I read articles that talk about bigger people working real hard not to eat in public, because they’ve ridden that ride and they know how people look at them, the “helpful” comments they get.  I see grown-ass competent smart people starving themselves not because health, but because they internalize that fat is a character flaw.  I see loving family members interrupting celebrational dinners to ask—should you be eating that?  And I listen to my own internal monologue, which says things like, you’re too fat to be pretty, or your appearance doesn’t matter, because if it did, you’d be in trouble. 

I look back at childhood me, making my best friend cry. 

It's messed up.  It's fundamentally messed up, not to mention counterproductive to the goals we think we have of general decency or actually helping each other or btw some basic stuff like can you be thick and sexy.

Let Lizzo be your lodestar.

So that's it.  I’ll be funnier next time.  In the meantime, live your best life—your healthiest, kindest (to yourself and others), most genuine life.  The struggle is real, maybe we can at least acknowledge that fact. 

Rant over.

Fall Goals

SPACE CAMP!!!!

Hello Reader!  I have been trying to keep to a Sunday-posting schedule, but in recent weeks this hasn’t worked out so well—my apologies.  First it didn’t work cuz I WENT TO ADULT SPACE CAMP (!!!!!) which was SUPER awesome but this isn’t that post, that post is yet to come.  THIS post is what happens when I went out of town for a weekend which threw my whole life schedule sideways and I spent the following weekend just trying to pull it back together but we’re not quite there yet.  My “pull it together” efforts will continue to fail, at least for the time being—I’m out of town next weekend too, at a Weird-Wild-West nerd larp where we 

We take ourselves v seriously.
If you want to take yourself
seriously too, check out
Calamity.

all play make-believe together in period costumes out in the woods with no air conditioning plus there are nerf-gun fights.  It’s dope.  But also exhausting, so chances of me applying my devilsome whit to relate anecdotes of my week are low.  So this is more of a tide-you-over post, by which I mean tide-ME-over, because I am sure you are just fine happily living your life.  Because it’s fall! 

So gross.

One of the things I noticed at Space Camp, that you may have also noticed recently at, say, Kroger, when considering your Oreo options, is that we are def at the beginning of fall.  No, Space Camp was not set up like Fright Night at Six Flags (although—if they did that???? I would be SO THERE???  RIGHT?!?!??!) but you could see it in the drive through the rural countryside, and in the trees.  Not like the leaves were all glorious and golden, just…you could tell.  Plus there was a morning where you could just kinda feel it.  I mean, technically it’s not fall til Sept 22, but let's not be *that guy* about it.

So AWESOME!

I love fall, because of all the normal and obvious reasons.  Sweaters, morning coffee in the crisp air, the onset of the best holidays (fight me, President’s Day), Winesap apples.  

A turn in the basic theme of this post, because this story is worth it:

My mom and I usually drive to the apple-picking mountains to get our bushel of Winesaps, which have a harvest season of about 26 seconds so you sometimes have to mess your week up to get it right.  And like, it’s a four hour drive round trip and we don’t do anything but stop, buy apples, and get back in the car to come home.  

Things my mom does not want to do: visit a pumpkin patch, build a scarecrow, get lost in a corn maze.  Mom doesn’t care.  She’s seen corn before and she’s wearing heels.  But we do get to spend quality time together on the road just hanging out.

Quote from last year: “What do you know about Credence Clearwater Revival?  NOTHING.  This is my music.”  For any of you who don’t know my mother, please know the Dowager Countess is a character study based on her.  I mean, she was absolutely wearing high heels for this car ride into the countryside, and the idea of her knowing anything about CCR is jarring and intriguing.  You can learn a lot in a four hour car ride, it turns out.  And then you get the best apples ever.

Winesap Apples are next-level good.  Tart and juicy and crisp and perfect.  This is the variety that led man to paint the whole apple world with a blame brush for leading humanity into sin when we all know no one would have given a snake with a Red Delicious the time of day.

Haha j/k obvs the real culprit was women

But for real you have to look their harvest schedule up because it is scant.  I talked to my mom today, just to check in, and she tells me—she went to the mountains to get apples this weekend. 

WHAT, I say, you went without me?  And got the imponderable and enchanting Winesaps?  Wait, is this even their time yet?

When you feel this sad, you go get apples.

No, Reader, it is not.  My mother did not check the harvest schedule, she just got frustrated because her football team suffered an embarrassing loss and got in her car and headed north.  This makes sense, if you are my mother. 

After two hours, she gets to the place.  Not the usual place, she says with disdain dripping from her voice (Dowager Countess, Reader), “because you remember they had all those…children running around.”  My mother has opinions on rambunctious children, even when 1) it is utterly charming and appropriate to take your children to an apple orchard in the fall and 2) I have no memories of unruly children at all, they were 

Demons.

just normal children, we are not talking Lord of the Flies here, and 3) she was literally only around these tiny barbarians and their outrageously negligent parents long enough to grab her bag of apples, glance at the jams and jellies, and cash out. 

That bridge is now apparently burned and she goes to another place.  She walks in and can’t find the Winesaps.  Presumably because it is not the season, but that hasn't stopped any of this yet so-- let's just let it play out.  She sees a man in an orchard employee t shirt (who, she casually mentions when telling me this tale, is on the phone when she approaches him.  Is it an important conversation?  No one cares.)  She asks him if he works there.  Yes, he says.  

She says it like that.

“Well where are your Winesaps?!” 

“Um…well it’s a little early, isn’t it?” he says.  He asks her what she likes about the Winesaps and patiently proceeds to cut open a number of other apples that are tart and juicy and crisp and actually in season.  She says they’re…fine.  They’re ok.  She likes this one better than that one, but what she REALLY likes is WINESAPS.  

She looks at the guy.  

The guy looks at her.

She looks at him. 

He probably begins to get a strange feeling at this point, like a faint smell of hay, or like a subtle sense of vertigo.  She keeps looking.  

He says “….you…you want me to just go get you some Winesaps?”

“Oh!  Would you?”

Of course he would.  He would be happy to.  And does he, of course he does.  He goes off into the fields and climbs the Winesap trees or whatever, while she makes small talk in the air conditioning at a country orchard store with another employee.  That is how she discovers that this isn’t just an orchard guy, this is The Orchard Guy, his father started this place, he now owns it, and thankfully dad trained him up not just in farming but in southern hospitality in the face of my mother.

Just a side story about my mom, this is the woman who, when the city sent people to work on the power lines in the front yard when I was about 13, went and talked to them for a total of ten minutes and suddenly they’re taking their truck to pick up garden stones and chopping wood in the back yard.  

So Mr. Apple Orchard, he didn’t have a chance, but don’t feel bad for him.  I am absolutely certain that when she left he was happy to have helped her and believed that running into the fields for her was exactly what he wanted to do and hoped she would come back again next year.  She’s that good.

I feel like maybe all of this might not be painting the right picture of my mother.  She is amazing.  She is smart, and classy, and loyal, and wise.  But also very particular, a little peculiar, and her superhero power is force of personality.  She isn't being maliciously manipulative, she just...comes with her own gravity.  

Anyway, I’m apparently going to have to get my own Winesaps this year.  Which was a goal of mine, which takes us back to the original post about fall goals but that story was irresistible-- if you're still with me, Reader, bless you and I'll keep it brief.

In the theme of other seasonal goals, here is my fall bucket list:

     1.  Make a pumpkin pie out of a pumpkin.  I don’t particularly like pumpkin pie, but I *do* have a fondness for overwrought projects. 

     2.  Go to the state fair.  Sub goals: eat funnel cake, meet a teacup pig, and hit something with a baseball for which I win a prize (jail time does not count, but would make for a great post).

     3.  Make homemade Halloween decorations that I will never use again because I do this every year and, in practice, I’m not actually very good at it.  In the moment I am always very proud of them, and with the clarity of time I realize they’re very disappointing, and next year I always decide to start again (but still don’t throw the old ones away, I am not some godless heathen, I MADE that).  This Sisyphean cycle is one of my favorite or at least longest-lasting fall traditions.

     4.  Go camping in the mountains and make everyone listen to the Last of the Mohicans soundtrack the whole time because that is the essence of the mountains and it makes it better.

     5.  Meet Shinsuke Nakamora.  This isn’t a fall thing in particular, I just love him so it goes on all bucket lists. 

He brought the violin to the WWE.  I dare you not to love him.

Out of my frustrated searchings, one year I made
this useful purchase, and by "this" I mean I have
twelve of them.  I used them once at Passover.
Once.
I have no regrets.

     6.  Find and purchase the elusive and perfect turkey-shaped soup tureen that I have been looking for for yeeeeears now.  I want him ril bad.  He is too big, tasteful [sic], ceramic, and does not cost sooo many of the dollars.  I have yet to find this glorious creature, but I believe he is out there, and I don’t care that we have neither space nor use for him.  

 

     7.  Figure out what to do with the lemon trees I absolutely bought knowing they can’t survive a frost, the monsters will just eat them if they come inside, and they can’t just go in the garage to sleep all winter because that’s not the kind of plant they are. 

     8.  Plant winter things, like collards and brussel sprouts, even though I know good and well I will neither harvest nor eat them.

They do it.  So why can't I do it?

 9.  Grow my own bacteria.  What’s that you say, Reader?  Bacteria is always growing, just all by itself, because it’s prolific in the world?  Well, you’re right.  But I want to science up some of my own fancy bacteria.  There are bacteria that eat ammonia/sweat smells and poop out nothing-that-smells-or-hurts-you and I just don’t know why I can’t make my own to grow in, say, my boxing gloves.  And kitty litter box.  And armpits.  Basically everywhere.  I have no idea how to do this.  I do have the internet, however, and if I create a monster, I’m sure you’ll hear about it.

     10.  Vote so hard in the midterms.  So.  Hard.

We’re like...halfway through September.  Dragon Con has come and gone, school busses are messing up my commute, and the sun sets earlier and earlier.  I wish you a wonderful fall.  May it bring you cozy fires, crunchy leaves, good apples, and harmony with the universe.

 

So hard.

The Golden Years

The inevitable passage of time.  The degradations of your mortal coil.  The unstoppable approach of death.  All of these things are cheerful and great, but I’d like to talk about a different aspect of aging.  Specifically, retirement.

Doesn’t retirement sound fun?!  The childhood of old age!  No longer slave to the work day, free to take up painting or goat raising or acting deaf and whapping people with your cane!  The world as your oyster!

 

I mean, but on a fixed income, so. 

SO you can plan for that!  (I know, I know, insert crushing debt and low wages here.  It’s not that easy.  But the days of being old are always approaching, so we do what we can.)

I have no idea if it ages well,
 but this is the book!

When I was a teenager I read a book called Smart Women Finish Rich, and I can directly attribute some solid choices I have made along the years to that book—it gave me a financial literacy system, a series of rules to follow when I started to live on my own dime that, even if I didn’t really understand the whats or the whys, were definitely better than me just feeling it out as I went.  In nature, I have poor impulse control.

But I didn’t have to be just in nature, I had a system; a book that said (among other things), always get the retirement plan, always put a lot of your (crappy, nonprofit-level) salary into it, always be saving.  It was a good framework to start with before I got used to having enough money to buy things—I just got used to not buying things, and hid that money from myself.  Took advantage of all the matching programs, put in the recommended percentages, all that.  

Are they...supposed to be that small?

Never mind that the world went upside down and retirement recommendations aren’t what they used to be, I have a little nest egg locked away where I can’t touch it til I’m 55 and a half, and it’s better than nothing.

Technically I have a couple of nest eggs, because while financial stability is a thing I internalized, long term job stability was not.  But since I’m ignoring all of this anyway for years to come, who cares.

Well, recently I decided to care.  I got tired of never being able to log into any of my accounts because I haven’t in so long I have no idea what the passwords are, and never being able to look at it all in one place, and never being able to make one decision like “let’s invest aggressively!” or “lock it all down, why are we tariffing, who let the horse loose in the hospital?!” and having that work across the board.

(gigglesnort)

So I got a Guy, a Financial Guy, and we started the process of rolling everything into one thing.  That’s what it’s called, it’s a roll over, and it’s something that most people?  Do?  As soon as they leave whatever job and get a new plan at the new job?  I really don’t know.

Basically my philosophy on these retirement investment accounts has been, “ignore it forever and when you’re getting there, see how it’s doing.”  I stand by this philosophy, in that I’m still young

Related note, as of Sept 4, I own *a* Nike stock.

 enough that you might as well and also the people running these mutual funds or whatever are trained professionals whereas I am like, “Dollar General!  Aww, I love Dollar General, I would like a stock please!” and “McDonald’s french fries!  I LOVE McDonald’s french fries!  Two stocks, please!” and

 that is not the most best investment plan for long term growth. 

And like, my accounts, they’re fine, they’re whatever, who cares, the money is imaginary for 

ISN'T THAT ADORABLE?!?!?

all of the more years.  You do what you can, it’s something, and if I was spending that money all I would have to show for it is an even larger collection of ceramic serving dishes charmingly crafted to look like vegetables.   It’s about security and peace of mind more than dollars of money at this point.

But it is my money, which is why this rolling over process has lit such a particular fire in me.

Let me walk you through it.  My Guy tells me how to do a roll over and it’s like this:

     1. Call them.

     2. Ask for a roll over check.

     3. No, that’s it. 

And they are like, cool, great, what address do we mail this to, have a nice day.  And I did it!  At one point I worked for the State, so I had a State retirement account, and it went just like that!  It was so easy!

And then I call the firm that has another of my accounts, let’s call

 them “Ass Utual,” and follow those same steps.  But the Assers, they’re like, great, we have a 15 page long complicated legal document we need filled out, plusandalso this form that we need signed from the employer who sponsored the account, but not just anyone can sign it, it needs to be an Asser Approved Representative at that employer, and then you send us all that and then we send you the check. 

The employer I worked for over seven years ago?

Yes.

The employer who sponsored me, with my name, birthday, SSN, etc. on this account, that match with those same pieces of info I am giving you now, plus any and all other personal verification steps we have gone through so far?

Yep.

But if I wanted to, say, change my investment strategy, then what I have done so far would clear me to do so, correct?

Yep!

But to actually get *my* money, I have to go through these extra and ridiculous hoops?

You got it!

Particularly maddening about this is, as I mentioned, I just got off the phone with the State's retirement people.  Who needed none of this.  The State.  The most bureaucratic and legally CYA entity that exists.  So these hoops, they aren’t a legal thing.  They are a policy thing.  A stupid, abstruse, infuriating policy thing, keeping me from *my* money.  A policy that appears to be unnecessarily burdensome in order to make one give up and leave one’s money with them…or at least do it wrong the first three times so that they keep earning whatever they earn off of having my money in the first place.  My money.  Mine.

MINE.

But here we are, so I take a deep breath and call my Guy.  That’s why you get a Guy, right?  I ask him to pretty please call them and in his most intimidating voice and with his best fancy industry 

language explain to them how effing ridiculous and morally bankrupt their process is (which he does not do, despite the offer of a bottle of nice wine if he ruins someone’s day, because he is a peaceful and professional human person who does not entertain their rage like some of us), and he helps me through the (ridiculous, terrible, very bad, no good) legal form.   Fine, one hurdle down.

Then I reach out to my old employer, where none of the people who

know me work anymore.  Over the next few days I explain my situation and beg them to actually sign the thing but only the right people to sign it please and please make it soon, even though they are busy doing the things that actually make up their daily job and they really don’t know who I am and this process is. so. dumb.

 How I Feel About Dumb Processes: Family Camp, a Case Study:

     Once you are all signed up for Family Camp, they send you, at some point, a piece of paper they want you to fill out and mail back.  It asks for things like your name, phone number, email address, and mailing address, where you are staying at camp, and the dates you are coming.  I got this form, and promptly forgot about it, for two reasons. 

     1. The act of actually mailing something is a pain for me.  I never have stamps, and I hate running errands.  This is a patently stupid reason not to get the thing done, but it is a great reason to put off doing the thing.  (I’m not saying I’m right, I’m just saying I know who I am.)

     2. One hundred percent of the info they are asking for is info they already have.  Know how I know?  Well, they mailed it to me—so there’s my name and address.  We signed up and paid for our spot, so they know the dates.  We requested our top three lodging choices and then they were the ones who had told us which we got.  So.  They have that info.  When lots of time had passed and I hadn’t mailed this form back, they called me (at my phone number they were asking for).  When I still didn’t do the thing, they emailed me (at the email address they were asking for).  Eventually they even contacted my dad and step mom, telling them that if I didn’t get it done my file wouldn’t be complete!!!!  That sounds like they Mean Business, and this is a Very Big Deal!  

But…iiiiiiissssss itttttt?  What happens when I show up at Family camp, which has been paid for at a cost of many, many monies, in rural Vermont, with my entire family, and my file is incomplete?  What is the next step?  Is it…letting me come to family camp?  Here’s a hint: it is.  I am sure they have a reason to have this form, it is part of their process, but it seems to me to be a dumb process, and they called my parents for a form full of info they already have who had to call me and freak out for me to actually do the not-very-difficult-but-essentially-inessential thing.  I would like to acknowledge that it is a very easy thing and I should have just done it…also, I do not have a lot of respect for dumb processes.  Call it a character flaw.

 

This concludes the lesson.

Back to this dumb process.  I contact old employer about signing my thing.  They do this, and are very polite in the face of my constantly checking in to see if it’s done yet—they are actually perfectly lovely.  They ask, do we need to just sign it, or do we fill out the part about how vested you are?  I do not know the answer to this  because there was no vesting in this retirement plan (and because no one walked me through this form, they just said get it 

Sticky-fingered like a toddler.
Like a gross toddler.

signed) and would have taken whatever, except the Perfectly Lovely Lady I was working with checked with, I don’t know, the instruction manual of terrible sticky-fingered financial institutions, and filled out the vestiture statement (I made that word up. I have no idea what that thing is called.)  They kindly email me the form back, I get all my documents together and submit them to Asshattery.com, and I wait for my check. 

But I do not get my check.  Instead, I get an urgent phone call from my Guy.  Assfacers mailed the check to his firm, who can only hold checks for 24 hours before they have to deposit them or return them, so I need to RIGHT NOW do all the paperwork to get an account set up.  Fine, whatever, I’m just happy we’re done with the Asstrash except—what’s that you say? 

You say the check is wrong? 

You say, the check is WAY wrong? 

I have…so many feelings.  Starting with, where is my money.  As it turns out, Connecticut!  Mmmmmmmmaybe I have looked up their brick and mortar facilities online, just…for funsies.  Also, just some random facts about Connecticut, a round trip plane ticket from my home airport costs $218.  Also no one wants me to go to Connecticut, everyone’s day gets worse then, so could someone please tell me where the-mother-of-God my money is.

This is not what I will be doing in Connecticut.

To answer that question, my Guy turns me over to his Gal.  At this point, I was like, DON’T EVEN TALK TO ME UNLESS YOU HAVE A COLD, MERCILESS 

Yes ma'am!

HEART AND THE FIERCENESS OF A RABID PIT BULL, and she was like, I EAT RABID PIT BULLS FOR BRUNCH AND SPIT THEIR BROKEN BONES ON THEIR CRYING ORPHAN PUPPIES, and I was like, Oh, that actually sounds perfect, it's so nice to meet you. 

So we call and my Guy’s Gal is everything I hoped and dreamed.  She knows what to say and what to ask and she takes about as much crap as Auntie Maxine and I love it.  We get an answer that the rest of the money is in a second check because obscure reasons that, at this point, I would like to result in jail time, but it’s on its way.  The Warrior Princess asks, how much is this other check.  They answer and, wouldn’t you know it, the two numbers together do

Not

Add

Up

To the total in the account. 

By two thousand dollars. 

I’d like you to image the following exchange in the kind of careful, even voice that best resembles the stillness of a stonefish in the moment before it strikes.  

If you don't know about stonefish,
they're worth your time.  Pretty dope.

We ask why the money doesn’t add up. 

 Asserator explains that it is because I have not vested.  

I explain that there is no vesting, that’s not the kind of program it was.  

Asstasia explains that it was too.  

I explain that it was not.  

I point out that the paperwork they made me get done across seven years and state lines from my old job says 100% vesting (vestery?  Vestation?).  

**Again, hats off to Perfectly Lovely Lady who checked the Financial Guidelines for Demons handbook!**  

Assibeth hems and haws and says “Well…”  

Warrior Princess says words that I don’t know what they mean but I like her tone.  

Asstopia puts us on hold.

Seriously call them NOW

We are on hold for a long time.  In case you ever call the friendly 

folks in CT, which I recommend you do immediately if you happen to have stumbled into their clutches at any point in your own financial journey, their hold music is a 59 second loop of jaunty jazz intended to make you punch your head through a wall until you are in a coma, relieving them of the need to give up your money. 

Assfoolery comes back and is like, let me call you back tomorrow.  Warrior Princess is on the case, but the long and the short of it is that Assfaces have no more answers now, so we get off the phone.

SERIOUS huge Thank You
to everyone who helped me
 navigate this lunacy.

They do call me back, and I have fond regard for Peggy 

in their call center, who is helpful and competent and invested in doing the right thing even though she works for not my favorite financial institution.  They are so sorry that they clearly made just a small error—their bad!  But no harm no foul, they’re mailing the rest of my money lickety-split!  Now we’re all friends again!

It has been a week and neither of the followup checks have arrived yet.  

The moral of this story is, save your money, invest in your retirement, pay more attention to it than I have, and get yourself a Guy (preferably one who knows a Warrior Princess) (I can recommend someone.).

I hear they have great lobster rolls in Connecticut.