California Health Insurance Quotes and Blog

Seventy-six-year-old Pritella Pratt didn’t consider herself old until Bastille Day dawned. Her California Health Insurance agent, Mabel, provided coverage when all else failed.

Bastille Day falls on July 14^th every year. Lately, septuagenarian Pritella Pratt felt like storming a few Bastilles herself, and she wasn’t even French. She did enjoy French salad dressing on her Romaine lettuce, and had eaten French fries, but that doesn’t count. But on Bastille Day, 2010, the French Independence Day, Pritella was in a hurry and tripped coming down some cement steps. She kept her balance, but it was Pritella’s pratfall nonetheless, as by evening of that day, several hours later, she felt a sharp nagging ache in her lower back. What was Pritella to do? She called Mabel, her beloved California Health Insurance agent (Mabel had also been her pinochle partner when her husband had been alive), to learn if her Medigap supplemental coverage was still in effect. “Yes indeedy,” Mabel said in her strange Irish brogue, “it is.” Medicare was great, but after Plan D of the Bush years, she didn’t know what to expect. She rushed out of her house, headed for her car, a Studebaker, and tripped, more seriously this time, a second pratfall. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” she whispered as loudly as she could. Several more such vocalizations left Pritella feeling very old indeedy, and now her back was much worse. It was still Bastille Day, but almost dusk. A crow was cawing. Finally a good Samaritan named Sam came by, and helped Pritella to her Studebaker. Deep down the seventy-six-year-old felt a sprig of hope, like a probing tendril, because of Mabel’s affirmative words “Yes indeedy.” Those precious words were all that mattered now. Three blocks later, the urgent care center came into view. She could have walked there if it weren’t for her pratfalls. It was now dusk and a second crow cawed. Her back was killing her, perhaps literally as she didn’t know what was wrong.  Feeling a surge of “old lady” adrenalin, she managed to open the glass doors, and walked into the health care facility. “I’ve got Medicare, and Medigap supplemental,” she proudly said when asked by the receptionist, and promptly fainted.

It turned out that she’d “ruptured something,” and she needed to go the hospital for observation. Waking up in her hospital bed, her first thoughts were of Mabel – and not the bill.

Everyone in California enjoyed celebrating June 4 as Hug-A-Cat Day, except for California Health Insurance Agent Matt Lockard.

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.

Daemon had been lost to the Smith family for more than a decade. But when John Smith’s mauling by the rarely seen wolverine had made the TV news, partly because of a California Health Insurance agent’s more than due diligence, Father’s Day 2010 became extra special.

John Smith and his wife Becca were preparing for their annual Father’s Day “cookout and fleshly barbeque” when the unthinkable happened. Usually the event drew the Smith’s three remaining children – Michael (named after the archangel), Mary (named after the mother of Jesus), and John Jr. (named after his Dad), ages 27, 29, and 31 respectively. Another Smith spawn was seldom spoken of. He’d left home at 18 for parts unknown, although rumors had surfaced that he’d become a Major League Baseball superstar for the Dodgers. Since the Smiths all hated baseball and none of them owned a television or radio, even if Daemon was playing shortstop with the Dodgers, his family wouldn’t have known. In fact, the family’s “black sheep” had become almost as famous as Manny Ramirez. Daemon was 32 now, and in fourteen years, there hadn’t been a single letter from the prodigal Smith son to any of his family members. Perhaps strangely, Daemon had become estranged.  

The accident involved the elder Smith. He was on the far side of Beverly Hills, his musket in hand, searching for a main course for the family’s upcoming “cookout and fleshly barbeque.”  If he’d been watching TV, he’d have known to avoid the far side of Beverly Hills. This nefarious region had become the lair of the infamous “Beverly Hills Wolverine.” It was on the news almost non-stop that day. The far side of Beverly Hills was like a ghost town.  “It’s awful quiet in these parts. Just me and my blunderbuss,” John Smith managed to say aloud, before the wolverine pounced. Wolverines are quite vicious. Just ask anyone from Michigan.

A California Health Insurance agent living in the neighborhood discovered Mr. Smith, who had purchased a policy on a prudent whim a few months back. The agent called ‘911.’ His second call was to the TV news stations.

On Father’s Day, the Smiths settled for turkey as their main course. Becca, Michael, Mary, and John Jr. were sitting down at the family picnic table with the bandaged John Sr., everyone in a melancholy mood when guess who showed up, bringing half the Dodgers?