California Health Insurance Quotes and Blog

It was fortunate that Ed Nolan and his family had purchased a health insurance plan dealing with emergencies from a California Health Insurance agent, or else an ill-fated seafood feast could have had even worse consequences.

[ How to cook your own Fish & Chips ]

It was St. Valentine’s Day eve before it occurred to Ed Nolan, a diesel mechanic and family man, that the ‘holiday’ needed to be celebrated or else his wife and eight kids would feel cheated. Brought up Catholic, Ed had met his wife Nancy when they were both in sixth grade at St. Valentine’s School back in Massachusetts, where they’d been childhood sweethearts. St. Valentine, as gorily depicted in the Catholic semi-sacred tome, “The Lives of the Saints,” had been a cupid-like young teenager shot to death by bow sent arrows, according to legend. As these grisly images surfaced in Nolan’s mind, he suddenly decided, without any planning whatsoever, that he’d have to take the entire family out to eat for “St. Valentine’s Day.” As it fell on a Sunday, but for some reason felt like a Friday, he figured it had to be a “fish place” — a restaurant specializing in seafood dishes. A born procrastinator, Ed and his family ended up driving around greater Los Angeles in search of a “fish place.” Finally, Ed pulled up to a seedy-looking diner called Cedrick’s Fish Place with Chips. “Perfect,” Ed exclaimed.

The food, planks of greenish-tinged cod with murky, dark red chowder tasted good enough going down. The younger Nolan children especially enjoyed the chowder and the process of discovering what “lurked beneath” in their bowls. “It tastes funny, but kind of nice,” remarked five-year-old Mary. 

A few hours later, the Nolan family en masse became very sick. A large quantity of vomit and diarrhea began to permeate their humble home. Much of it smelled like rotten fish. Ed procrastinated until his little girl began to resemble Typhoid Mary, a tragic character in history just as St. Valentine had been in his painful last ordeal. She began to develop her own greenish-tinge around the ears, nose, and mouth.      

Feeling nauseous and leaking out the derriere himself, Ed drove to the nearest urgent care facility post-haste. He remembered when they’d purchased a California Health Insurance policy from an agent named “Bill.” What was his last name? “Valentine,” Ed recalled. Next year, the Nolan family would plan well in advance for St. Valentine’s Day, the family’s patriarch ruefully mused.

When six old friends headed to a trout stream near Yosemite, Pete had no idea that he’d be hooked instead of a trout. But because of a timely prior visit to a California Health Insurance agent, the point of this painful fishing yarn turned out to be the one that got away. 

Fishing Accident!!

Pete Wafsleger was an expert fisherman. Using bait and a fiberglass rod, he usually caught his limit. One day in May, Pete and five old friends, all experienced fishermen sans one, headed up to Pete’s favorite stream in Yosemite.  They drove up in an SUV, if not exactly fuel efficient, the vehicle was “fishing efficient,” according to Sam, the SUV’s owner and driver.

The vehicle’s onboard GPS worked swell, and within an hour, the group of friends arrived in the park. Within a few more minutes, they’d found Pete’s cherished stream. “Here we are!” he yelled. Sam stopped the car. The men felt like kids playing hooky when they got out their poles, and baited their hooks. Everybody was in a good mood. Five casts, expertly launched, went out into the stream.

Before Sam sent his own cast airborne, he spoke a red flag. “How do you even know for sure there’s even fish in this stream? It’s only about six inches deep!”

Pete and the rest turned to face Sam and flashed him looks. Every trout fisherman worth his tackle knows that a trout stream is seldom more than a foot deep. Besides, they’d all pulled stringers of writhing trout from this very stream. But at that very instant, Sam launched his cast. It sailed into the air like the others – for about seven feet – until Sam hooked Pete with considerable force – right in the forehead. “Geez Sam,” they all cried in unison, “now look what you’ve done.”

For his part, Pete just stood there bleeding profusely.  Sam drove in a quite a hurry back in the way they’d come, in fact, even further, all the way to Barstow. An emergency room gurney lay waiting for Pete. As he was wheeled off into the bowels of the hospital, his friends followed along like grown puppy dogs, and Sam seemed especially bedraggled. Pete lay there bleeding and repeating in the manner of a mantra, “Thank heavens I got health insurance coverage.”

Sure enough, Pete did have a plan in place. He’d purchased it a few months back from a California Health Insurance agent who was also a fisherman of sorts.

A few days later, the friends were all having a good laugh amid a few beers, even Pete, still wearing a bandage to protect the stitches.  “Still my friend?” Sam asked Pete.

“Sure,” Pete said, “Can’t help it. I’m hooked.” At least he wasn’t the friend that got away.

It was a good thing that all of the people at the office were covered by policies purchased from a California Health Insurance agent. The irony is that they were just trying to lose weight.

Everybody who is overweight, not grossly obese necessarily, but even those who find themselves pleasingly plump, get the urge to lose weight right after New Year’s. Diets are taken up like Bibles, and gymnasiums and sauna rooms are filled with perspiring people of every age and description. The offices of Turtlebaum & Turtlebaum, a Sacramento accounting firm of considerable renown, was no exception. Joe D’Angelo by his own estimation needed to shed twenty pounds worn around his middle like a girdle, Patty Provencal seemed to possess a double stomach along with her double chin; Betsy Boopora’s ankles had morphed into cankles, and Irving Iso, although quite conventional in most ways, possessed arms like an elephant’s trunk.

At the beginning of 2009, they’d all made New Year’s resolutions to lose the excess flab. Each was about to be weighed to learn just who might be winning the “Biggest Loser” prizes which had been offered by management as weight loss incentives. But the results were disappointing.

When Joe hopped up onto the precision scale, he’d lost only two pounds, and Betsy had lost just under a pound. Patty had actually gained forty pounds, and Irving had gained almost sixty. To describe any of these losers as “winners” seemed a stretch, but throughout the entire year, stress and anxiety about the “weigh-in” had been bubbling in their bloodstreams like lava from a volcano, and during the celebratory feast something was bound to give. People watched in abject horror as Irving turned red as a beet and actually “popped,” like in that Monty Python movie, and as he was whisked away in an ambulance, the same medical emergency to lesser degrees struck Betsy, Patty, and Joe.  While Irving had suffered some kind of massive stroke, his co-workers were merely hospitalized; thanks to a California health insurance agent who’d issued them all policies, they at least got to stay in separate semi-private rooms.

Joe grasped the prize he’d won in his left hand, the sinister one, while lying in bed and staring at the funny whorls in the hospital room’s ceiling. A nurse coming by with a bedpan happened to glance downwards and discover what it was: It was a ticket for the balcony as a member of the audience for the television show The Biggest Loser.