Amelia Nosehart’s favorite day of the year was the day after Thanksgiving when Rancho Bernardo shoppers could get a head start on their Christmas shopping with early bird specials.  Retail stores in neighboring burbs would open at two, three, four, five a.m. in efforts to woo obsessed shoppers just like Amelia.  But at Ye Olde Pet Shoppe what should have been a touch exotic as 3:37 a.m. sprees go almost turned deadly.  The chain store’s “exotic reptile” section was selling “Baby spitting cobras” for an amazing $1.99 each. As Amelia joined the crazed throng of “early birders” she knew she had to have two or three of the venomous little critters, assuming they’d been defanged of course, as pets for her nephews Josh and Andy, both notoriously difficult to buy for. As Amelia nearly “flew” through to the front of the frenzied crowd of typical Black Friday bargain hunters, a glass case accidentally cracked open in the madness and she heard a slight “hsst” and felt excruciating pain in her left eye, the one with its stigmatism.

Rushed to the nearest hospital for obligatory antivenin treatment and eye cleansing, Amelia  was obliged to stay overnight as a precaution, and called Matt Lockard, her friendly California Health Insurance agent at his office in Ventura, just to let him know what had happened at Ye Olde Pet Shoppe.

“Matt. Guess who this is? It’s Amelia. I’m in the hospital,” she said.

He kind of recognized her. “Like the legend?”

“Yes, sort of,” she said, “Guess what happened to me on Black Friday.”

“What?” he asked, remembering the policy he’d sold her just a few months back, covering just about any kind of emergency.

She provided the gory details, about the crowds, the frenzy, the early morning madness, and the baby snakes for her nephews.

“You’re lucky you can still see out of that eye,” Matt opined.

“I can’t at the moment. They gave me a patch. It’s still light-sensitive.”

“Oh,” Matt said, “but you sound so happy.”

“Why shouldn’t I be happy?” explained Amelia, “Ye Olde Pet Shoppe not only gave me the baby cobras for free, they threw in an EXTRA pair. They’re all in my semi-private room with me now in a convenient ‘holiday’ Plexiglas case. Josh and Andy are going to be absolutely thrilled!”

“I hope these have been defanged,” Matt offered.

Amelia squinted, feeling a twinge.

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They were everywhere. Dotting the grasslands of California were vestigial gates, the beginnings of fences, thousands of such ethereal structures acting as portals to emptiness.  These creations were made by one Jack DeVries, an artist hailing from Modesto. One day the quasi-celebrity strolled in to California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard’s office. “I was expecting you,” Matt said.

“I’ve heard of you,” DeVries said.

“And I of you,” countered perhaps the most celebrated California Health Insurance agent in all of Ventura.

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The obvious question hung in the air. Why does DeVries do it? Leave so much to the imagination, unfenced, leave gates constructed that anyone could walk around in a few steps, and well, just enter.

The answers began pouring out of Jack DeVries’s gob, a trickle of words that grew into a torrent. DeVries spoke of a fixation, a fetish if you will, and perfection spent entirely with every detail tended to: To Jack DeVries, the Devil was indeed in the details, trapped in the gate. The artist’s only stipulation was that his gates be wooden.

It was then that Matt Lockard learned that the maker of stranded gates felt similarly about insurance. “I need a plan that is like my lovely gates,” the artist voiced in an odd creaking tenor that reminded Matt of a gate opening wide enough to let a health insurance salesman in.

Matt knew instantly what the man desired in his heart of hearts. “Oh, you must want a PPO Plan,” he said simply, a bit like Yoda in that movie.

Jack DeVries smiled a gate-like grin, and this time when he pursed his lips they made a creaking sound.

Matt Lockard had known immediately that a PPO bore a certain similitude to the gates. Although without accompanying fences, these unfinished structures were precisely perfect in every nuance, just as a PPO tailored to Jack DeVries would feature the masterpieces of physicians specializing in every aspect of a certain artist’s personal healthcare.

“That’s exactly what I need,” Jack DeVries croaked again, “How did you know?”

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Bob was kidded about his name whenever he played golf. “How come you never make par?” his golfing buddies teased. The truth be known — Bob Parr was a lousy golfer. He shanked or hooked most drives, and popcorned his iron shots. He missed putts less than four inches in length. “I’ve never seen anybody do that,” remarked Bob’s friend John P. Knotworth. But on the 12th hole, a par-three dogleg, the unfortunate Knotworth was standing about fifty feet down the fairway when Bob Parr struck his fateful tee shot with an ancient driver. Knotworth was way off to the side and seemingly safely out of Bob’s line of fire. The golf ball, a brand new dimpled Titleist, had other ideas. Struck hard by big Bob, who stood six foot six and weighed close to 250 pounds without his cleats, the Titleist careened on a straight diagonal, striking John P. squarely on his forehead before he had a chance to duck, knocking him cold. Pete and Gary, two other members of the foursome, gazed upon the scene in horror. Bob was mortified by the accident he’d caused. “Oh no!” Bob screamed. John P. Knotworth resembled a dead sunfish lying by a golf course pond even by the time the paramedics arrived.

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The next day when the foursome had gathered in John P.’s hospital room, the victim was conscious and smiling, although the raised welt on his forehead looked angrier than the sting of a hornet. Pete and Gary were grinning too, but big Bob was worried – perhaps because he’d been responsible. “I’ll pay your bill,” Bob offered graciously, “it’s the least I can do.”

John P. Knotworth laughed a hearty laugh that sounded a bit like a long drive struck correctly, straight as an arrow. The knot on his forehead must have still been hurting, but he didn’t let on. “Forget about it. My California Health Insurance agent sold me a policy a while back. We got you covered Bob.”

Pete and Gary joined John P. in a fit of manly laughter that must have lasted for two minutes while Bob just stood there, finally managing a sheepish grin of his own.

“I’ll practice more on the driving range,” Bob promised. “I’ll hit five hundred balls!”

Pete was a jokester right then. “Better make that a million!” he said. That line got everybody laughing.

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Trevor Young came from a nice maggot-farming Mormon family just north of Pocatello. Blonde, Trevor was quite the handsome country boy, when he headed off to UCLA to study Agriculture. In his pocket was his “trick” for impressing young women, a sample from his Idaho farm. “Maybe I’ll meet somebody to marry up with,” he told his mother, a stout matronly sort. “Are you bringing your little box?” she asked sweetly. “Of course,” Trevor said, “It’s the best lure I got.” His mother nodded. “If she doesn’t like your little box, then she’s not good enough for my boy,” Trevor’s mother opined. She and her husband Hyrum had also gifted their son with health insurance coverage purchased from a California Health Insurance agent. “We won’t worry so much,” she told her ninth-born.

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Once on campus, Trevor settled in. One of his roommates noticed the little box. Left unattended on a bureau top, it was oval, smelled of chocolate on the outside, and was purple. “What’s in this Farm Boy?” the guy asked. Max Weinart was a junior majoring in International Finance from the Bronx and guessed precious jewelry, like a ring, was in it.

“It’s for a special girl,” Trevor explained, implying to Max that the contents were none of his business. Max nodded, assuming he’d guessed right.

A few weeks later at a formal soiree, Trevor met that “special” girl, Karen. Big-boned but pretty, she hailed from Jersey. She later regretted popping the question. “What kind of farming does your family do?”

“Wait, I’ll show you.” Out came the box, the one that had so intrigued the girls from north of Pocatello. Karen gasped at the contents in horror, screamed and reflexively punched, smacking Trevor in the jaw and knocking him cold.

While recovering in the UCLA Medical Center, with his jaw expertly wired, Trevor spoke through clenched teeth. “I got insurance,” he told Max, who’d come to visit.

“I heard what happened,” he said, “But why did you show that girl a box of dead maggots?”

“It was my fault,” Trevor admitted, “the live ones are so pink and beautiful.  I should have figured that when I’m home, they keep better.”

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Health Insurance Helps in Car Crash

Leonard Durban was proud of his brand new Saab. It was chartreuse with a gold trim. It had no flaw or blemish. While shopping one fine sunny day, he’d purchased his groceries two bags full and was preparing to exit the parking lot of Nice Foods where natural foods were sold.

His Saab was stopped. But another car, a 1965 Studebaker which was the color of phlegm had approached from within the parking lot as Leonard looked on with horror. The driver, one Agnes L. Penta, an irascible 94-year-old, was practiced in cutting corners as she approached stop signs. She’d been driving this way for what seemed like an eternity at least for any traffic she unfortunately encountered. As far as she was concerned, Leonard’s brand new Saab had no right to be where it was. Even its right to exist was questionable in her murky mind.

“I always stop at the stop sign when I shop at Nice Foods,” she toldthe police officer called to the scene, “I can’t help it if he was in my way. He hit my car. I had the right of way.”

Leonard had tensed his muscles when he saw the phlegm-colored Studebaker approach, and impact triggered a generalized pain almost immediately. But within minutes as Leonard’s sad Saab story was ending, he recalled California health insurance agent Matt Lockard and he managed a weak smile.

“You stupid ninny. Why are you smiling like a jackass?” Agnes screamed at Leonard while flashing what could only be described as her characteristic reptilian grin. At that precise instant, all Leonard could produce in response was an agonizing grimace accomplished while smiling because he now knew it annoyed the vicious woman.

When the phlegm-colored Studebaker and its despicable driver had begun to recede into Leonard’s memory, and after he’d been treated to alleviate the neck and back spasms caused by the accident, a more pleasant interlude occurred. Leonard found himself inside the office of California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard.

“You’re completely covered,” Matt said, “and your auto insurance covered the damage to your Saab. It’s fixed good as new. But that elderly driver …”

“I don’t blame her,” asserted Leonard, “Life’s too short.”

“Not for the woman who hit you,” replied Matt. “She’d take any moment she gets, and yours too.”

When a Father’s Day traditional pig roast results in accidental burn injuries to a gentle boy’s hands, it’s fortunate that his parents had purchased a child’s policy from California Health Insurance agent Matt Lockard.

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The Smuckers of Visalia didn’t make jams and jellies, but for five generations the family had purchased a piglet during the previous December from a local pig farm for roasting on the upcoming Father’s Day. Always the eldest Smuckers child would be charged with raising the piglet to maturity in order for it to be slaughtered on its appointed day in June. This festive and delicious tradition was eagerly anticipated by one and all, although the boy or girl raising the piglet usually had harbored mixed feelings amid a sense of dread about the animal to be inevitably sacrificed. Dan J. Smuckers had told his son Jeffy, age 8, not to get too attached to his piglet. “It’s not a pet Jeffy. It’s just your job to raise him so he gets nice and plump with good meat on him,” he warned.

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But Jeffy was unlike other Smuckers children preceding him. “Yes Daddy,” the boy said, but he already harbored forbidden feelings of affection for his piglet, having secretly named him “Spot” because of a small brown birthmark on its little pink hindquarters. Jeffy was a gentle kid and loved animals, but he’d never been allowed to have a pet.

“Spot” grew up at a normal pace and bonded with Jeffy, often letting the soft-hearted boy scratch him behind the ears. His eight-year-old mind tried frantically to devise a scheme to rescue his porcine friend from its looming encounter with the spit. The pig, for its part, grew big and fat. Finally, it was June, and time for “Spot” to be executed in the shed. Dan surmised his son’s misgivings, and performed the murderous deed when Jeffy was at a sleepover one Saturday. While Jeffy cried and screamed when he found out, he was quiet on Father’s Day until the festive time had arrived, and “Spot” was appropriately spitted. But Jeffy appeared like an avenging little angel when the party was in full swing and the cooking had commenced, and when the boy grabbed the red hot pig to wrench it off the spit ….

Jeffy really cried and screamed as both of his hands were badly burnt. As the family’s SUV raced along to the local hospital’s emergency room, Dan reassured himself with words that he hoped would calm his tender-hearted (and tender-handed) son. “Don’t worry Jeffy. I know you’re sad because of that pig. But at least treatment in the hospital burn unit will be covered because we purchased a child’s health insurance policy from our California agent, Matt Lockard.” But Jeffy just screamed all the louder.

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Wine Tasting

Chris and Sally would never have thunk it. They were an amorous and amiable couple, married for the better part of three years, prudent in the extreme, and were headed out to Temecula for a pleasant sojourn of wine tasting. “The tour will be fun,” Sally said, “and the local wines are superb.”

But there were so many wineries to choose from. Finally, a fateful decision was made. They turned their 2007 Toyota Tundra into the driveway and parked.

The tour began pleasantly enough. Harry, their guide and waiter, brought over twin tasting glasses of Syrah. “It’s a dry red table wine,” he said, “very nice.”

“Very nice,” Chris and Sally echoed in unison. The afternoon was perfect. A cloudless sky, not excessively hot, a little breeze was blowing at low levels near the ground, like a miniature headwind. It felt good on the skin.

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Next was a Cabernet Sauvignon. “This one is mild, note its deep red color, and its blackberry aroma,” the suave Harry said, dressed in a lavender Tuxedo, to accent certain flavors.

“Wow,” said Sally, “this is wonderful!”

“Indeed,” echoed Chris.

Harry interjected a factoid to make the couple’s experience yet more delicious. “Were you aware that this Sauvignon is aged in oak barrels for 18 months prior to bottling?”

He didn’t say that the particular oak tree on the premises used by the winery for bottling had been destroyed because it had been infested by killer bees.

“No, we weren’t aware,” Chris replied a little too loudly and emphatically.

The Zinfandel arrived next at their outdoor table. “This white dessert wine doesn’t age well, I’m afraid,” he spoke a second prior to the look of pure fear becoming apparent on his features.

At the worst possible moment, the Sadharts began arguing.

“It’s spicy,” said Sally.

“You’re wrong. It’s fruity!” Chris yelled with altogether too much emphasis.

The swarm of killer bees, guided to their table by the current of the micro-breeze and the vibrations of their arguing and possibly by Harry’s colorful if incongruous attire, began stinging the couple again and again. This did not feel good on the skin.

The Sadharts were fortunate that Harry had once been an ambulance driver and that an Urgent Care center was very close, and especially that the bills were taken care of.

“It was prudent of us to obtain emergency coverage from a California Health Insurance agent,” Sally purred through swollen lips a few days later. “We were extremely prudent, dear, although we’ll be in agony for the next few weeks.”

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Stian had never been considered especially responsible by his parents – until he “popped the question” to a helpful California health insurance agent.

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 He was blonde, tall, handsome and invincible according to his peers, a group of fellow 24-year-olds considered equally invincible by each other. All of them were recent college graduates prone to taking incredible risks. Bryan, a heavy-set version of Stian, liked to hang glide off the steepest California cliff faces, catching the first thermal while shouting madly in his counterfeit Dylanesque twang, “You don’t need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows.” Angela, an emaciated version of Bryan, did roulette drugs by needle just “for the thrill of it.” Carrie, a Gothic version of Angela, enjoyed being buried alive and popping up unexpectedly in the manner of her cinematic namesake.

Stian would run barefoot through rattlesnake pits with one of his friends holding a stopwatch as he raced to and fro. “Do it again,” Angela would trill, “You’re so funny.” Carrie would pop up like a tart and sometimes Bryan would glide into view, usually with a beer in his left hand, the sinister one.

“Where did he come from?” they’d all ask, except for Stian, who was concentrating on the pit vipers.

But one day Stian’s parents Joe and Flo came by to bring their son a latte. “What do you think you’re doing?” asked a horrified Joe.

“He’s twenty-four and still doesn’t have the sense of a pet rock,” murmured Flo.

“You’d think he’d at least have health insurance when he pulls these stunts.” Joe told his wife, still in a state of shock for the moment instead of The Golden State, “But no-o, not our irresponsible son.”

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Stian gingerly stopped his antics with the snakes and stepped out of the pit as if he’d been bitten. He’d overheard what his parents had been saying about him. He was sobbing as he walked past an incredulous Angela, Carrie, and Bryan straight to his parents, also incredulous.  “Here’s your latte,” his mother said, attempting to hand it to him.

“Hold onto that,” Stian said, still teary-eyed, “just hand me your cell.” Flo’s cell phone was pink, with black crocodiles on the receiver.

“Who are you going to call?” Joe asked softly.

Through a drizzle of tears, came the answer, rather defiantly, “Your California health insurance agent. I’ll bet she has a low cost plan for people my age.”

“That’s my boy,” said Flo, her own tears forming.

“He’s a man, not a boy anymore,” Joe replied, choking up too. “Stian knows what he’s doing.”

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Individual dental plans available from your California Health Insurance Agent might apply to saber tooth cat syndrome.

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Jack Daniels of Malibu Beach had loved to surf until the accident. The blonde-haired twenty-something possessed a marvelous physique and received plenty of covert glances from beautiful women on the beach every time he went surfing. But it was the surfing he loved. The glorious pursuit of aqueous perfection gave him goose bumps. He worried about sharks and barracudas and miscellaneous garbage tossed into the waves by careless jerks aboard pleasure craft, but it was the obvious that initially did him in.  One afternoon he grabbed his board and strolled out into the Pacific in moderate surf. Excited, as he was about to catch a wave, he smacked his face down abruptly with his mouth slightly ajar onto his red, white, and blue surfboard. His “problem tooth” snagged, the peculiar incisor sinking into the polyurethane a half inch deep, wedging solid. “With my head stuck like that,” Jack later told the television crew, “It was a miracle I didn’t drown.”

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He vowed never to surf again while that tooth was in his gob. As a boy of thirteen his mother had taken him to a dentist for the first and last time. “Open your mouth kid,” the dentist, “Call me Seymour,” had said. Jack was shy, but opened, only to have the insensitive dentist remark a little too loudly, “Oh boy. This kid has saber tooth syndrome. It’s still a baby tooth, but …”

Jack had learned not to smile. He was a good-looking teenager, but when he’d open his mouth and people saw it – they looked away. Now, the lonely ex-surfer had to do something about it.  But what? He didn’t have dental insurance. Jack finally worked up the courage to call a California Health Insurance agent, Mr. Louis B. Snaggle. “Hello. I don’t know if you can help me. I have s-s-s-aber tooth c-aaaa-t syndrome,” Jack managed.

“How long is it?” the friendly agent asked. Jack told him.

“Come right over. We can get you covered,” Mr. Snaggle reassured him.

A minor dental procedure later, Jack was back surfing. He didn’t see the garbage floating in the seawater until it was too late.

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Gilead McBride called Matt one summer day to invite him to the candle factory. “I’ll make it worth your while,” Gilead said. Gilead and Matt went way back.

It was up in Oxnard, by the tracks, in a part of town that smelled bad. Matt didn’t know what to expect. When Matt Lockard opened the door to the factory, the aromatics were sinus-draining, making his eyes water. “What is this place?” he asked Gilead.

“We make candles,” Gilead replied.

“I thought you worked in a refinery outside of Escondido,” Matt said.

“Nope, they laid me off after twenty-six years. But this is my dream.”

“Making candles?”

 “Not just candles, we make candles with exotic scents.”

Matt followed Gilead to an assembly line where samples of scents lay at the ready.

He picked up a candle, yellow with black stripes. It vaguely resembled a candy cane impersonating a yellowjacket. “Here, smell it.” Gilead said.

Matt reluctantly took a whiff. Something vaguely like manure greeted his nostrils.

“Distant horse stable,” said Gideon proudly, without being asked. Other candles followed in quick succession. Soon Matt’s olfactory sense felt like it’d been assaulted.

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There was a subtle odor of something cooking. Smelled like walking through a tight knit apartment complex. Matt couldn’t quite put his finger on that smell. Familiar but not really inviting like you’ll never own it. “It’s called, ‘Hey, what’s that you’re eating?’” Gideon explained.

A beige-colored candle with the scent of baby powder and sour milk, its scent described as “baby fingers” almost made the California Health Insurance agent gag.

Finally, as Matt escaped into the candle factory’s sealed air-conditioned office, he found out what Gideon had been wanting all along.

“The state says I need group health insurance for my employees, and Cobra is too expensive,” the fledgling candle-maker explained. Matt had noticed some employees milling about in the factory. They seemed listless, probably from smelling too many of these candles. Group health insurance would be needed here, probably in a hurry.

“I can help,” Matt Lockard said, sniffing again once more just to see if he could.

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