It's true, what they say...
For over a year now, Hannah and I have been meeting with two representatives of World Financial Group. WFG is the Avon of financial services. They pitch their product at home visits. They host cultish, motivational parties for their associates. They employ a multi-level marketing compensation scheme. Much about the organization offends my sensibilities, but one of the two representatives we’ve been meeting with is a long-time associate of mine through many years of volunteering for the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, so giving her some business seems like a friendly thing to do. And they make house calls.
The product we have applied for is term life insurance to replace the unimaginably revolting mortgage insurance Hannah and I have been carrying since we financed The Suite.
Mortgage insurance is such a scam. For a premium of $80 per month, our mortgage provider promises that, in the event of either of our deaths, the mortgage will be paid-off - basically, written off by the institution. It’s scam-ish because the potential award of this insurance is determined by the amount owing on the mortgage. So if you owe $100,000.00 on your mortgage you’re paying for a $100,000.00 insurance policy.
But that same $80 per month premium would buy about $225,000.00 in term life insurance. In the event of either of our deaths, the survivor could pay-off the mortgage amount owing and still have $125,000.00 remaining for other expenses. Furthermore, as your mortgage is paid off over time, the value of your potential award declines while the premiums stay the same! Replacing our mortgage insurance with term-life insurance is our course of action.
Welcome to this post’s ellipse.
“I figured you’d write one post about the trip,” Amandi Khera commented, not long after we had returned from the New Year’s in Las Vegas trip with Carlos Montoya and Prairie Jamie. “But it’s like this on-going series of stories.”
On January 24, 2009 I left the story at:
After 'Mamma Mia', Jamie, Amandi, Carlo and I returned to our Strip-side hotel room at the Monte Carlo to do a health assessment. Jamie was at the end of her stamina for the day so she and Carlo decided to return to their room at the Red Rock, and Amandi and I changed clothes for the nightclubs.
There is a black&white photograph of me at age 4 taken by my mother. In it, I am sitting on our family couch, looking up at the camera with an expression of clear surprise. There is a Playboy magazine across my lap, open at the centerfold.
It’s not likely that my awareness of Playboy Clubs began in that fraction of a second in 1969, but it was definitely in my childhood that I began creating mental models of what the places must be like. They were as fantastical as castles. And Playboy Bunnies occupied the same domain of rarified existence as Disney Princesses. It was impossible to believe that I would ever set foot in a Playboy Club.
So, I’ve been [thinking about] them for almost forty years.
It had taken some negotiation with Amandi for her to agree to visit the Playboy Club at the Palms Casino with me. I trust that patronizing an institution so closely associated with our culture’s objectification of women underlay Amandi’s objections, but we worked out the deal that she would accompany me to the club and I would accompany her to MOON, one of Las Vegas’ best dance clubs, conveniently located one story higher in the Palms Tower.
Amandi and I each geared up in our night-club finery, and Carlos dropped us off at the Palms as he and Prairie Jamie headed back to their room at the Red Rock Casino.
The line behind the velvet ropes leading to the Playboy elevators was about two-hours long, time enough for us to have another losing bout at the craps tables before we were able to enter the elevator car and visit the legendary environ of the world’s only remaining Playboy Club.
It was kitchy and modern at the same time. The hostesses and blackjack dealers wore the classic, bunny uniforms, and one of the hostess bunnies asked us if we needed anything once we’d sat down in a pair of zebra-skinned armchairs.
“There!” Amandi noted in a congratulatory tone. “Now you’ve talked with a real Playboy Bunny!” I was pretty pleased about that, and with the irony that Amandi had discovered herself more displeased by the other female patrons whose skanky-manner-of-dress was more revealing than that of the Playboy Bunnies.
Amandi drew a cigarette. And though I’m a non-smoker, I suggested that sitting in a zebra-skinned armchair in a 60’s reminiscent Playboy Club would be the most fitting circumstances for me to have a smoke. Amandi agreed, passed me one, and offered me a light. She asked if I wanted inhalation instructions, but I didn’t take her up on them.
We each had a drink. I played five $25 hands of Bunny-dealt blackjack (the minimum bet at the club). She dealt herself three 21s, pushed my 20, and beat my 19. So, down another $100, Amandi and I finished off the night upstairs at MOON. Amandi said MOON was a great dance club, and its views of the Las Vegas Strip were spectacular.
The World Financial Group advisors rattled through our health questionnaires quickly. After meeting with us bimonthly throughout 2008, they had a pretty good impression of our lifestyles.
“… and you’re both non-smokers,” one of them said as she sped through the checklist of lifestyle habits.
“That’s right,” Hannah answered quickly.
The advisor seemed to take notice at my pause.
“I had one cigarette on December 30th, 2008,” I reported, dutifully.
“What?” Hannah exclaimed. The advisor sat back in her chair and exhaled.
“I have to report that as ‘smoker’,” the advisor explained, as it was within one year of the date of application. “This might change the premium from what I’ve quoted you.” She offered that she would submit the application to the insurance underwriters with a cover letter explaining the circumstances of the single cigarette, hopefully nullifying its financial impact, but she could not promise anything.
It’s true, you know: what happens in Vegas really should stay in Vegas.
The product we have applied for is term life insurance to replace the unimaginably revolting mortgage insurance Hannah and I have been carrying since we financed The Suite.
Mortgage insurance is such a scam. For a premium of $80 per month, our mortgage provider promises that, in the event of either of our deaths, the mortgage will be paid-off - basically, written off by the institution. It’s scam-ish because the potential award of this insurance is determined by the amount owing on the mortgage. So if you owe $100,000.00 on your mortgage you’re paying for a $100,000.00 insurance policy.
But that same $80 per month premium would buy about $225,000.00 in term life insurance. In the event of either of our deaths, the survivor could pay-off the mortgage amount owing and still have $125,000.00 remaining for other expenses. Furthermore, as your mortgage is paid off over time, the value of your potential award declines while the premiums stay the same! Replacing our mortgage insurance with term-life insurance is our course of action.
Welcome to this post’s ellipse.
“I figured you’d write one post about the trip,” Amandi Khera commented, not long after we had returned from the New Year’s in Las Vegas trip with Carlos Montoya and Prairie Jamie. “But it’s like this on-going series of stories.”
On January 24, 2009 I left the story at:
After 'Mamma Mia', Jamie, Amandi, Carlo and I returned to our Strip-side hotel room at the Monte Carlo to do a health assessment. Jamie was at the end of her stamina for the day so she and Carlo decided to return to their room at the Red Rock, and Amandi and I changed clothes for the nightclubs.
There is a black&white photograph of me at age 4 taken by my mother. In it, I am sitting on our family couch, looking up at the camera with an expression of clear surprise. There is a Playboy magazine across my lap, open at the centerfold.
It’s not likely that my awareness of Playboy Clubs began in that fraction of a second in 1969, but it was definitely in my childhood that I began creating mental models of what the places must be like. They were as fantastical as castles. And Playboy Bunnies occupied the same domain of rarified existence as Disney Princesses. It was impossible to believe that I would ever set foot in a Playboy Club.
So, I’ve been [thinking about] them for almost forty years.
It had taken some negotiation with Amandi for her to agree to visit the Playboy Club at the Palms Casino with me. I trust that patronizing an institution so closely associated with our culture’s objectification of women underlay Amandi’s objections, but we worked out the deal that she would accompany me to the club and I would accompany her to MOON, one of Las Vegas’ best dance clubs, conveniently located one story higher in the Palms Tower.
Amandi and I each geared up in our night-club finery, and Carlos dropped us off at the Palms as he and Prairie Jamie headed back to their room at the Red Rock Casino.
The line behind the velvet ropes leading to the Playboy elevators was about two-hours long, time enough for us to have another losing bout at the craps tables before we were able to enter the elevator car and visit the legendary environ of the world’s only remaining Playboy Club.
It was kitchy and modern at the same time. The hostesses and blackjack dealers wore the classic, bunny uniforms, and one of the hostess bunnies asked us if we needed anything once we’d sat down in a pair of zebra-skinned armchairs.
“There!” Amandi noted in a congratulatory tone. “Now you’ve talked with a real Playboy Bunny!” I was pretty pleased about that, and with the irony that Amandi had discovered herself more displeased by the other female patrons whose skanky-manner-of-dress was more revealing than that of the Playboy Bunnies.
Amandi drew a cigarette. And though I’m a non-smoker, I suggested that sitting in a zebra-skinned armchair in a 60’s reminiscent Playboy Club would be the most fitting circumstances for me to have a smoke. Amandi agreed, passed me one, and offered me a light. She asked if I wanted inhalation instructions, but I didn’t take her up on them.
We each had a drink. I played five $25 hands of Bunny-dealt blackjack (the minimum bet at the club). She dealt herself three 21s, pushed my 20, and beat my 19. So, down another $100, Amandi and I finished off the night upstairs at MOON. Amandi said MOON was a great dance club, and its views of the Las Vegas Strip were spectacular.
The World Financial Group advisors rattled through our health questionnaires quickly. After meeting with us bimonthly throughout 2008, they had a pretty good impression of our lifestyles.
“… and you’re both non-smokers,” one of them said as she sped through the checklist of lifestyle habits.
“That’s right,” Hannah answered quickly.
The advisor seemed to take notice at my pause.
“I had one cigarette on December 30th, 2008,” I reported, dutifully.
“What?” Hannah exclaimed. The advisor sat back in her chair and exhaled.
“I have to report that as ‘smoker’,” the advisor explained, as it was within one year of the date of application. “This might change the premium from what I’ve quoted you.” She offered that she would submit the application to the insurance underwriters with a cover letter explaining the circumstances of the single cigarette, hopefully nullifying its financial impact, but she could not promise anything.
It’s true, you know: what happens in Vegas really should stay in Vegas.