In lieu of a day off on that fateful August 15^th, Matt Lockard wanted to at least have a relatively easy day. Most of his fondest memories in some way were involved with National Relaxation Day, or at least a degree of relaxation.

By 11 a.m., he’d seen seven clients, customers and prior policyholders march through his office door, families with their family plans, the elderly and the newlyweds, and even a llama that ambled in off the street and actually wasn’t a customer.

A woman from somewhere in the Middle East came by in a burka, and a pirate wanted one of those special policies to protect his interests on the high seas – as he was wary of other pirates with all that’d been going on lately in the Indian Ocean. They came in to make the day ultra-hectic and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.

Cripes Matt Lockard whined (fortunately only in his mind’s eye), it’s National Relaxation Day and I can’t have a leisurely day just because my gig is California Health Insurance policies. It seems that everyone in California has some kind of health care concern that a policy can address.

Just then some college students came in, and they wanted a group policy that would protect them from potential injuries incurred at keg parties. Five of the six were young men, all enrolled in California schools getting in-state tuition and the straggler was an attractive young woman, unmarried but majoring in animal husbandry she soon revealed. Ten minutes later, Matt was at it again, part of a flurry of frenetic, attending to needs of people that had to be met.

More pirates in the afternoon, but these happened to be transplants to the Los Angeles environs from Pittsburgh. A bald-headed centenarian walked in preceded by his cane, and he wanted a policy that would somehow last to provide a legacy perhaps. Soon it was five of the clock and the sun was beginning to approach the horizon and Matt Lockard, a man who had missed his chance to relax, was about to set. The phone rang just then …

The Olsens were headed from their village of Orange Hollow straight to Los Angeles to go camping in the nearby foothills for 4^th of July weekend. But a wrong turn led Biff, the family’s patriarch, into East LA. A camping trailer couldn’t help but attract attention. It was inevitable when Biff and his lovely wife Beatrice, their sons Brian, Bill, and Bobby, only eleven – heard the first knock. “Who could that be?” whispered Beatrice. “It’s not Matt Lockard,” Biff said, “He doesn’t know we’re here.” The Olsens had recently purchased a family health insurance plan from Matt, a California Health Insurance agent if ever there was one. Once he’d invited the Olsens to the Los Angeles area, in a casual aside, but where their trailer was parked now was no place for tourists.

“Can I go outside?” said Bobby, being only eleven.

The knock came again. Fifteen-year-old Brian opened the door, and a youth gang poured into the family’s trailer en masse all wearing hockey shirts embossed with the logo of the Los Angeles Kings.  The Olsen kids, after a childhood spent cooped up in Orange Hollow, were keen on adventure. When one of the Kings offered to “show them around,” it sounded like adventure.

When the Olsen boys went with the others, Beatrice became momentarily worried. “Where are they going?” she said.  

“Boys will be boys, let them explore,” replied Biff.  

A few hours later, another knock came. This time it was a SWAT team, armed with a search warrant. The police officers discovered a Bible with certain passages from the Book of Revelations clearly marked, and also brought news of their boys – Brian, Bill, and Bobby, who was only eleven. “They were involved in an altercation with a rival gang,” one officer said, “Your youngest was shot in the leg.”

“That’d be Bobby,” replied Beatrice, “he’s only eleven.”

“We’d better call Matt Lockard and go to that hospital,” Biff said to Beatrice, after the SWAT team left, “Sounds like their exploring got out of hand.”

Matt Lockard, California Health Insurance agent extraordinaire, didn’t know. He was really clueless about National Hug-A-Cat Day being celebrated on the 4^th of June.

When the calls from cat-loving clients kept ringing him up on the 3^rd, a whole slew of them, Matt was puzzled and even wary. “I assumed it was some sort of practical joke,” Matt explained.

Matt was less than enthused, especially when clients such as Mrs. Bessie Morgenthau began texting him on his Smartphone. “After she texted me about a dozen times, I’d had enough,” Matt said, “When I texted her back, I told her that I didn’t even like cats.”

This did not go over well. During the remainder of Hug-a-Cat Day eve, the calls kept coming in, overwhelmingly pro-cat, increasingly irate.

“Why aren’t you out with your cat preparing for the hug-a-cat-a-thon?” a client who refused to be identified finally asked the exasperated Matt, hearing a distinct purring in the background.  “I don’t have a cat,” Matt replied, but at that moment, he almost wished he did.

The next day, National Hug-A-Cat Day, dawned smoggy and putrid, a little like if a disgusting cat box had been left in Matt’s office. Matt opened the door to like any dutiful and hardworking California Health Insurance agent might, and entered. “What’s that smell?” Matt immediately said. A few seconds later, he saw it, a real cat box, and several little cat houses made of hard plastic not far from where the litter would go if he had any. “Oh no!” Matt cried, and then, perhaps instinctively, “Here kitty?

Suddenly, out from the cat houses came one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight of them, Matt counted. Matt sat down and began sobbing, and then a strange thing happened. The cats started coming up to him, nestling against his trouser shins which were soon covered in cat hairs. Matt reached out and started petting. “These animals just want to be fed,” Matt said aloud. Still, despite his best instincts, he picked one up, little more than a kitten, and hugged it.

In the Roman Catholic Church, there are holy days of obligation when Catholics feel obliged to attend Mass. The Catholic holy days are significant to devout Catholics, but downright silly to Mormons and Moslems. Insurance Awareness Day, which has been celebrated (according to certain obscure calendars such as the Jivan—pronounced jive-an, for thousands of years) — is a sacred day to every California Health Insurance agent. “Most of us begin the sacred holy day with a ritual jog before heading into the office,” explains Matt Lockard, “or else we jump up and down for several minutes to get the blood going.”

Once in the office, a candle is lit. It’s usually purple and delivers a pungent odor, especially in a confined space like an office setting. “I usually light the candle with a customer, my first appointment of the day, already in the office. No matter what kind of policy they’re buying, the lighting of the candle on Insurance Awareness Day seldom fails to elicit a response,” Matt explains. It seems to remind many people of exotic dancers.

In fact, an exotic dancer is sometimes hired to heighten the festivities, but the dance performed, the “Insurance Dance,” is very protective in nature. “Just watching it performed gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling all over,” Matt asserts, “I also get kind of tingly.” By the time the ritualistic dance is completed, most customers also feel covered. “It doesn’t matter what kind of policy you’re buying. When someone is doing the Dance, and there’s a California Health Insurance agent in the room, who wouldn’t feel that they could withstand any medical emergency?” Matt argues.

After the dance, Matt typically recites “The Insurance Poem of Light,” always uttered in a reverent tone, and then refreshments are served. “I’ve been known to serve cookies and milk, or lemonade and pretzels if it’s hot,” Matt explains, “and everyone leaves happy.”

So is it like a party? About this sensitive subject, Matt Lockard appeared subdued. “It’s not anyone’s birthday,” Matt says abruptly, “It’s Insurance Awareness Day.”

Matt Lockard considered it a perplexing question. He’d been hearing it from clients a lot lately. Are those “lazy hazy days in May” covered best by family or individual plans?

A young girl named Hazel, only fourteen, and still under the umbrella of a child’s plan, was the first to call. “It’s a lazy, hazy day in May,” she said, “Calloo Calay,” and then she sighed the way adolescents always do.

“How are your parents?” Matt asked her, considering tenderly that he had a daughter who was about the same age, although her name wasn’t Hazel. “How can I help you or them?”

Hazel was swift and to the point. She pounced as if her femur were about to break, but hadn’t. “Calloo Calay,” she repeated, “My mom wanted to know whether those lazy hazy days in May that people are always talking about are covered best by what kind of plan? She’s serious.”

“Calloo Calay,” said Matt, attempting to approach the spirit of how the question had been posed, “This is a grave matter, nothing to joke about. These kind of days can lead to a rash of accidents. People don’t pay as much attention to what they should be doing.” Almost as an afterthought, he added for emphasis, “Calloo Calay.”

Hazel was quite impressed, especially when Matt added the part about the family plan being best in their case, but that circumstances varied by family, or individuals, and about how a given demographic responded to the “lazy hazies,” as they are customarily referred to by California Health Insurance agents in the know.

A flood of calls ensued; however, as several “lazy, hazy days in May” began to influence the behavior of careless Californians. Matt started to second guess himself, and third guess, and fourth guess himself, in a profusion of guessing. This profusion caused a certain confusion. When he left his office to walk down the street for a sandwich on a particular lazy hazy day, he got lazy, and soon felt hazy, when he tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and fell on his knee. Fortunately, he landed directly on a carpet beetle wandering aimlessly about, which cushioned the blow. As for the beetle …

Matt Lockard, a California Health Insurance agent, had assumed he’d heard it all until he spoke to Dustin Coughman, at least as far as warm weather allergies were concerned. Most of the time, warm weather allergies, ragweed, rhinitis, and the like can infest nearby hills and vacant city lots to make his clients miserable, but it didn’t end there. Policyholders had been given the wheezies by such culprits as Russian thistle, or tumbleweed, coastal sage, mug woort, and pig weed, but until Dustin called on that fateful day, he’d never imagined what redroot could do to a human respiratory system, and also to the skin of a grown man.

Dustin sounded positively wretched when he decided to ring Matt up. “Matt,” he began, “May is my bad pollen month.”

It seemed that the only time that Dustin called was when he was in the midst of a bad allergy month. “I thought that April was your bad allergy month.”

“It’s bad too,” Dustin admitted in a pitiful croak which was becoming chronic, “but May is the worst.”

“What are your symptoms today?” Matt asked, attempting to be helpful.

“You don’t want to know,” Dustin croaked again, sounding even worse if that was possible.

“I do,” reiterated Matt, “That’s why I asked.”

There was a pause, as Dustin gathered up remnants of vocal cord, having to sort of bunch them to get his words out. The man’s throat was obviously inflamed. “Matt,” he said, “It’s my throa –“

“I figured that out already,” Matt replied, perhaps a little too smugly, “What are you allergic to in May? Do you even know?”

“Of course,” Dustin re-croaked, although it came out very much like hoarse instead of course, “I know exactly what it is. It was the tea that I had – prepared by Vageena, my well-meaning niece. It had redroot in it – I’m sure of it.”

“Redroot – redroot – redroot tea,” Matt rhymed, sort of, remembering an ancient jingle, then blurted, “Vageena?”  

“We call her Geena,” Dustin re-croaked again.  

“I understand,” Matt said, and he did.

“Can…you…call…,” Dustin begged piteously.

Matt, being the well-versed California Health Insurance agent that he was realized that Dustin was trying to croak “Urgent Care.” Dustin was picked up by a cab.

But later Matt felt a strange compulsion. “Red root tea,” he said to himself, “Gotta have some.”

The Easter egg hunt over the spacious estate was great fun for the estimated five-hundred boys and girls loosed by the starter’s gun. Johnny and David Sprunt, a pair of brothers, aged 9 and 8, were intent on filling their baskets with treats. The chase after the hidden confections – became a frenzied kind of kid madness, within the first few seconds. But Johnny quickly spied a yellow marshmallow baby chick and placed it in his basket amid the green plastic grass and soon bent down to reach for a chocolate bunny behind an azalea bush that his brother David spotted at precisely the same instant. But when he too bent down and reached, the result was the accident of two boy heads bonking. The brothers were knocked cold.

“They both might have concussions,” their Dad figured. Their Mom was on her smart phone in seconds and dialing 911. Both parents were relieved when they realized that the trip to the ER would be covered, as they’d purchased a family plan from Matt Lockard, their California Health Insurance agent just a few months before.  First David, and then Johnny recovered consciousness in the ambulance enroute to the hospital, which was a good sign.

Both boys did sustain slight concussions, but even worse, they’d missed the rest of the Easter egg hunt. Later, when the brothers were recuperating at home, their parents offered them some pieces of Easter candy which the boys ironically refused – instead they asked for child’s strength aspirin. 

About a week later, the entire Sprunt family decided to pay a visit to Matt Lockard’s office. Within minutes the boys were relating the entire story, bonking and all. “That’s exactly what happened to me when I was about your age. I bonked my head on my friend Sammy’s head.”

The boys were impressed. “Really?” David asked.

A moment later, Matt surprised the family with an offer. “Hey, I knew you were coming over and hid some candy around my office. Whatever you can find in five minutes you can have.”

It was more informal, but big smiles suddenly appeared on Johnny’s angelic face, and then David’s. The hunt was on! Within ten seconds though, when both boys spied a big chocolate bunny at precisely the same instant, and reached for it a little too eagerly …

When California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard was growing up, cartoon characters like Bill Cosby’s Fat Albert and Porky Pig made kids laugh. But in those days, most “fat” kids were merely chubby, few were obese, and even fewer were morbidly obese. “I watched Fat Albert and Porky Pig and Miss Piggy and the Muppets, and they made me laugh,” explains California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard with a hint of nostalgia in his voice, “I’m not sure I even knew any really fat kids when I was a boy, and in any case, we all exercised and played sports along with watching TV. I might have played a little Pac Man as a teenager, but not for hours and hours like a lot of the kids today. There was a balance generally speaking.”  The operative word is “was.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 19 percent of American children (over 10 million) 6-19 years old are overweight or obese – a number that has more than tripled since 1980 when Matt was growing up. In addition, over the past three decades the childhood obesity rate for preschool children aged 2-5 years and adolescents aged 12-19 years has more than doubled, and studies have shown that overweight adolescents have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight or obese adults.

“The repercussions of childhood obesity certainly impact the health insurance industry,” Lockard asserts, “along with a lack of preventative care and emphasis, obesity in general and childhood obesity in particular are major factors bringing up the cost of U.S. health care.”

Experts and Lockard are in agreement that inactivity and poor eating habits contribute greatly to obesity’s prevalence and recent rise to epidemic status, and the trends are getting worse, not better. “They eat fast food and junk food primarily, and are way too sedentary,” Lockard argues, “it’s a national tragedy that’s just beginning to be scrutinized.”

Obesity-related diseases such as Type 2 diabetes are already assuming epidemic proportions along with the obesity itself, with pediatric diabetes increasing as much as 60% since 1995. As adults, these health issues experienced in childhood account for “more than half of all hospitalizations,” according to Lockard. Yet despite these grim statistics, “That’s not where politicians place their emphasis,” Lockard concludes.

Luis from Los Angeles Mission.

The homeless population in and around Los Angeles knew her only as “Grandmomma” as she preferred to be called. But Morticia Jackson was no mere ancient crone who’d once had a traditional family. A wealthy woman, her last relative, a 62-year-old grand-niece, had preceded her in death some six years before, when Morticia had already achieved the venerable age of 105. That’s when the very old woman, still in excellent health, decided to volunteer to help the homeless. No mere bag lady, she brought bags of food and clothing to the numerous shelters, making the rounds. She also cooked meals and scrubbed floors, and referred to this last stage of her life as “my exciting new career.”

“Don’t you have a family?” she’d often be asked.

“Nope,” she’d reply, “I did. They’re dead.”

She had made the acquaintance of California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard, and had purchased from him any health coverage she might need in case she became ill. But it turned out to be just a precaution. Morticia never even caught a cold. A lesser woman might have just considered herself invulnerable and left it at that, pleased with her good fortune and resolved to die in her sleep someday. But by the time she walked into Matt’s office, still with a spring in her step, she’d acquired a new “family.”

Matt always marveled at Ms. Jackson’s energy. “You sure got spunk,” he’d say.

“I used to,” she’d say, “When my husband was alive. But he died a while back. His spunk died with him.”

“How long has it been?” Matt asked, a little curious.

“Sixty-three years this Tuesday,” replied Morticia.

What she told him next astounded the California Health Insurance agent, not that she wanted to buy a final expense life insurance policy, but what she wanted it for.  Besides taking care of her funeral and burial expenses, she wanted it to provide extra money for the city’s homeless population. It would have to be specially written and comply with California law. But it would be one gift of many from one Morticia Jackson to the people she now loved.

“Why are you doing this?” Matt asked.  “They’re strangers to you.”

“No they’re not,” she replied, “They’re my family.”

The backyard garden area of Rebecca’s Ventura home, a split-level ranch, was one of her favorite places. She loved the solitude of tending the various plants, and plucking weeds, which she often did barehanded. One day following the recent Los Angeles area rains, a deluge actually, mudslides were reported in the hills, and so much rain fell that entire homes were washed away.  Perhaps if Rebecca Sunnybrook had lived on a farm, this might have been her tragedy too, but in her own environs, mostly it was a newfound abundance of weeds suddenly proliferating in her lovely garden that she was primarily concerned with. Funny, the worst of the weeds had shiny leaves which reflected the prodigal sun in all its own subtle beauty. She wondered what kind of weed was this, with its creeping fronds and questing tendrils spreading a perverse chaos throughout her once lovely garden?

It was while sitting on her patio drinking lemonade when Rebecca noticed the itching.  By the next day, even after she’d showered, the itching had become intolerable, accompanied by numerous raised blisters and a patchy rash that now had spread over her entire body. Scratching only made it worse, even with her long sharp feminine nails, and Rebecca didn’t have the slightest clue why. She was miserable, and had health insurance, that she knew, and when she picked up the phone to speak to Matt Lockard, her friendly California Health Insurance agent, she sought his advice. “Should I seek out the ER?,” she asked plaintively, her lips bloated and strangely muffling her speech, after she’d related her encounter with the peculiar weeds n her beloved backyard garden.

Matt pondered her tale.  As she waited for his response, he gave her two sound bytes that would linger in her memory. “Poison oak,” Matt said, “Urgent care.” He mouthed a third, “You’re covered,” but she already knew that. She got in her car, a Toyota that still stopped okay, and raced it down to the Urgent Care center less than a mile away.

She was treated with various topical anti-urushiol potions, a potent antibiotic to alleviate the systemic infection, and released feeling much better. She called Matt once again with a sound byte of her own. “No more itchy,” she said, and he replied with his booming laugh.