College the ING way
Saturday, February 13th, 2010Using the intermediary of a California Health Insurance agent, California’s foremost “critter-catcher” prepared for his son’s college education – the ING money back term life insurance way.
Irwin Steeve was known for “catching critters” – the deadliest and most poisonous found in California. He used a grabstick to capture rattlers, a gloved hand to garner black widows, and his bare tongue to entice the feared California purple glow worm, visible only in the glow of an expensive $5 purple beam flashlight – out of its secluded burrow. He knew that he couldn’t keep on tempting fate forever, one of these days a California-indigenous critter would rear up and he’d end up like that Australian, what was his name?
But Irwin had a son. He’d watched his son Irwin Jr. grow up — a day at a time. Except most of the time, the phenomenon known as Irwin Steeve was never home, and so Junior, as he was called, grew up pretty much alone, except for his own beloved critters and also his mother. He preferred his pets, a circus of fleas that the boy was training for the big time. Junior had named most of them, all but the most talented one, and the tiny fleas practiced death-defying stunts under the boy’s paternal-like supervision, until finally … Irwin Steeve’s kid was a junior in high school, sweet sixteen.
Irwin the critter catcher began thinking about his only child anew, what about college, he pondered, and what if God forbid, something were to happen to me? So he visited a California Health Insurance agent one fine sunny day, and bought a policy, available via ING Financial Services, money back term life insurance, like a one-way ticket to financial security for the boy and his fleas, and for the first time in many a year, Irwin Steve the original knew, if not bliss due to looking a glow worm in the eye, then a certain peace of mind just in case of the unthinkable.
A few months afterwards, the unthinkable was brought to bear by the God who plans such things, or if you’re an atheist, by a certain Mr. Fate, that peculiar name which Junior had bestowed upon the most talented flea, the star of his miniature circus, an aerialist extraordinaire able to leap tall toys in a single bound, and in any case, Irwin was attacked by an enraged harbor seal, bitten on his posterior, the wound became infected, and the rest is Golden State history.
As for Junior, he went to college on his ING money back term life insurance, with an assist from a California Health Insurance agent, and his late father, dead, just like the Australian, what was his name? Junior majored in animal husbandry, minored in the flea business, and as for Mr. Fate – he’s still talked about.
Andy’s parents, Don and Jane, were a little opportunistic, some might say exploitive. Andy was diagnosed with progeria at three, and by the time he was four, the condition was in full swing. The little boy only three feet tall looked around seventy-eight. He was cute as most toddlers go, but not in the traditional sense. His little wispy growth of hair was beyond gray, more a fading white, like old man snow. It was a little like that Brad Pitt movie. Wrinkles lined his face like detour lines, directing the traffic of his experience in the wrong direction. But his curse was not the rare, incurable disease, but was instead Andy’s parents. They not only failed to love their son, they weren’t above exploiting him for personal gain, if they could find an angle.
A quandary arose between partners in a law firm, and a buy-sell agreement offered within a life insurance plan by a 
