The irony, the near-irony, you have no idea
My leg hurts. I’ll get around to telling you why. You know, ellipses and all that…
The Saturday after the revelation of the Las Vegas Cigarette at the Playboy Club, a medical nurse visited The Suite to administer another health questionnaire and take blood and urine samples for analysis. The results would be sent to the insurance underwriter to determine the disposition of our application for term life insurance. We had been quoted a monthly premium of $94 per month on the basis of Hannah and I being non-smokers.
Our insurance agent phoned this morning with the results.
“Hannah is elite premium,” the agent said. Elite premium is the best tier and plays the lowest monthly premium, so for her share of the cost of our insurance; it went down from our quoted price.
“You came back as ‘standard smoker’,” she continued. “So, your monthly premium will be $147 per month.”
Some quick math and I assessed the cost of that cigarette upstairs at the Palms Casino at $6,360. An extra $53 per month over the course of a ten-year term life insurance policy.
“But we can re-apply in a year,” the agent added when I shared this calculation with her. “If you’re considered a non-smoker then, then you will qualify for a lower premium.” I mulled over the suggestion, briefly. I’d be paying $636 for the patently false excess risk arising from my miscategorization as a ‘smoker’ in exchange for the an extra years coverage under a $250,000 life insurance policy.
Remember that this is to replace the mortgage insurance that we already have in place.
“Or,” I countered. “We could just stay with the mortgage insurance for another year and a could reapply then. After all, this only matters if either Hannah or I die in the next year.”
“What do you mean?” the agent asked.
“You’re asking me to make a $600 bet that one of us will die in a year. I don’t think we will, so I could just stick with the mortgage insurance for another year, re-apply, and save myself $600. If I’m wrong, then at least one of us gets the mortgage paid out.” The agent didn’t think that made much sense, but we ended the call with her agreeing to go back to the underwriters and me agreeing to discuss it with Hannah.
I’m a graduate of the CanBike II defensive cycling course. I’ve been taught to ride a bike according to the rules of the road and I’ve ridden on some of the busiest roads in the city - in-traffic, down Connor’s Road, for example. There’s only one street where I ride on the sidewalk, and that’s 104th street, also called Calgary Trail, which heads out of the city connecting to Highway 2. It’s a 4-lane, one-way, arterial roadway, but between Whyte Avenue and 63rd Avenue, where the Centre for Environmental Business and Advocacy and Balloons stands, people drive on it like it’s a freeway.
I was riding my bike on the west sidewalk of 104th street. Four lanes of south-bound traffic was whooshing on the asphalt mere feet to my right. As an arterial roadway, 104th street is fed by feeder avenues at every block. It’s tricky to turn off one of these avenues onto 104th. Drivers have to stop at the intersection, look to their left (towards the north, watching the south-bound traffic) to time the open spaces in the traffic, then gun their vehicles to get in and up to speed. This means that a north-bound sidewalk cyclist is approaching from their right - the direction they are not looking.
A soccer mom in a black SUV was stopped at 65th avenue and 104th street. She was looking north. I rang my bike bell, unsure if the tinny ping would penetrate her steel mobile fortress. I pinged again before riding in front of her behemoth, her head turned, she nodded at me and I crossed before that huge chrome grill.
A maroon sedan was stopped at 67th avenue and 104th street. The older male driver’s neck was leathery, with deep folds in the skin as he faced away from me watching the south-bound traffic. I pinged, and not only did he turn to face me, he actually backed up his car to clear my riding path. I nodded my thanks and he nodded back.
As I crossed 69th avenue, I was advancing towards a pedestrian standing on the corner, a young woman who might’ve been a student at nearby Scona Highschool. We have several mixed-use bike routes in Edmonton - basically sidewalks where it is legal to ride a bike amid pedestrians - and one of the rules of use is to ring your bike bell before passing. She was facing away from me, and I pinged twice.
My front tire was already in front of her when I saw the glowing white cords of iPod earbuds dangling from beneath her knitted cap.
F = ma.
Force is equal to mass times acceleration.
How much force could a teenage girl generate accelerating across half the width of a sidewalk?
She hit me full force in the left side of my body. Good for her under the circumstances, since it meant that she took no force from an impact of me and my bike colliding with her. But I landed well into the nearest lane of southbound traffic. Thankfully, because her burst of speed was intended to get her across four lanes of traffic, I wasn’t in any immediate danger of being hit by a car.
She apologize two or three times, then took advantage of another gap in traffic to run across 104th street.
I stood for a few minutes, leaning on my bike, the handle bars now slightly misaligned.
My legs hurt. My right leg a little more than my left. Nothing was broken though, so the operation my life wasn’t going to be affected by this event.
But the force of that collision - being hit by a teenage girl accelerating half the width of a sidewalk?
Man, I never want to get hit by anything bigger than that.
The Saturday after the revelation of the Las Vegas Cigarette at the Playboy Club, a medical nurse visited The Suite to administer another health questionnaire and take blood and urine samples for analysis. The results would be sent to the insurance underwriter to determine the disposition of our application for term life insurance. We had been quoted a monthly premium of $94 per month on the basis of Hannah and I being non-smokers.
Our insurance agent phoned this morning with the results.
“Hannah is elite premium,” the agent said. Elite premium is the best tier and plays the lowest monthly premium, so for her share of the cost of our insurance; it went down from our quoted price.
“You came back as ‘standard smoker’,” she continued. “So, your monthly premium will be $147 per month.”
Some quick math and I assessed the cost of that cigarette upstairs at the Palms Casino at $6,360. An extra $53 per month over the course of a ten-year term life insurance policy.
“But we can re-apply in a year,” the agent added when I shared this calculation with her. “If you’re considered a non-smoker then, then you will qualify for a lower premium.” I mulled over the suggestion, briefly. I’d be paying $636 for the patently false excess risk arising from my miscategorization as a ‘smoker’ in exchange for the an extra years coverage under a $250,000 life insurance policy.
Remember that this is to replace the mortgage insurance that we already have in place.
“Or,” I countered. “We could just stay with the mortgage insurance for another year and a could reapply then. After all, this only matters if either Hannah or I die in the next year.”
“What do you mean?” the agent asked.
“You’re asking me to make a $600 bet that one of us will die in a year. I don’t think we will, so I could just stick with the mortgage insurance for another year, re-apply, and save myself $600. If I’m wrong, then at least one of us gets the mortgage paid out.” The agent didn’t think that made much sense, but we ended the call with her agreeing to go back to the underwriters and me agreeing to discuss it with Hannah.
I’m a graduate of the CanBike II defensive cycling course. I’ve been taught to ride a bike according to the rules of the road and I’ve ridden on some of the busiest roads in the city - in-traffic, down Connor’s Road, for example. There’s only one street where I ride on the sidewalk, and that’s 104th street, also called Calgary Trail, which heads out of the city connecting to Highway 2. It’s a 4-lane, one-way, arterial roadway, but between Whyte Avenue and 63rd Avenue, where the Centre for Environmental Business and Advocacy and Balloons stands, people drive on it like it’s a freeway.
I was riding my bike on the west sidewalk of 104th street. Four lanes of south-bound traffic was whooshing on the asphalt mere feet to my right. As an arterial roadway, 104th street is fed by feeder avenues at every block. It’s tricky to turn off one of these avenues onto 104th. Drivers have to stop at the intersection, look to their left (towards the north, watching the south-bound traffic) to time the open spaces in the traffic, then gun their vehicles to get in and up to speed. This means that a north-bound sidewalk cyclist is approaching from their right - the direction they are not looking.
A soccer mom in a black SUV was stopped at 65th avenue and 104th street. She was looking north. I rang my bike bell, unsure if the tinny ping would penetrate her steel mobile fortress. I pinged again before riding in front of her behemoth, her head turned, she nodded at me and I crossed before that huge chrome grill.
A maroon sedan was stopped at 67th avenue and 104th street. The older male driver’s neck was leathery, with deep folds in the skin as he faced away from me watching the south-bound traffic. I pinged, and not only did he turn to face me, he actually backed up his car to clear my riding path. I nodded my thanks and he nodded back.
As I crossed 69th avenue, I was advancing towards a pedestrian standing on the corner, a young woman who might’ve been a student at nearby Scona Highschool. We have several mixed-use bike routes in Edmonton - basically sidewalks where it is legal to ride a bike amid pedestrians - and one of the rules of use is to ring your bike bell before passing. She was facing away from me, and I pinged twice.
My front tire was already in front of her when I saw the glowing white cords of iPod earbuds dangling from beneath her knitted cap.
F = ma.
Force is equal to mass times acceleration.
How much force could a teenage girl generate accelerating across half the width of a sidewalk?
She hit me full force in the left side of my body. Good for her under the circumstances, since it meant that she took no force from an impact of me and my bike colliding with her. But I landed well into the nearest lane of southbound traffic. Thankfully, because her burst of speed was intended to get her across four lanes of traffic, I wasn’t in any immediate danger of being hit by a car.
She apologize two or three times, then took advantage of another gap in traffic to run across 104th street.
I stood for a few minutes, leaning on my bike, the handle bars now slightly misaligned.
My legs hurt. My right leg a little more than my left. Nothing was broken though, so the operation my life wasn’t going to be affected by this event.
But the force of that collision - being hit by a teenage girl accelerating half the width of a sidewalk?
Man, I never want to get hit by anything bigger than that.