Frustrations

Life is full of events over which we have no control. Hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes. I heard a man in Joplin thank God for saving him from the deadly tornado which killed so many people in that Missouri town. What about the ones that died? Didn’t they love Jesus, too?

The economy is in a mess. Congress could do something about that. They won’t. The President can do nothing without the cooperation of Congress. Republicans want to defeat Obama in 2012. Then they can give more privileges to their rich friends. The voters could do something about that, but will they? The Democrats are almost as useless as the Republicans.

My heart goes out to the unemployed, who are losing their benefits, their homes, and their life’s meaning. Their children are taken to a new neighborhood, a new school, without their friends, even without their closets full of clothes and their toys. No room for them with five or six living in a single motel room.

I even have a little sympathy for the young people who grew up being given everything they asked for. Want it? Buy it. Just use your credit card. Want a house that’s finer and twice as big as the one your parents owned? Just sign here. . . .

Then came the housing debacle. Houses by the thousands are still being foreclosed.

I despise bankers, who demand their pound of flesh from the unemployed. Also, C.E.O.’s making $10 million a year as the head of corporations making huge profits by laying off more workers every month. Each time a company lays off 1,000 workers, the price of its stock goes up.

I hate brokers who made millions by parlaying stocks to record highs. . . and who will continue to make millions in commissions as panic-driven investors sell off as the stock market tanks.

Compared to the millions who are really suffering, my problems are petty. Still it is frustrating. My car had 34,000 miles, yet the engine blew up. It has taken a month, but Hyundai finally agreed to put in a new engine under the warranty. Then my cell phone quit working. My friend Doris took me to Sprint in 107 degree heat to get a new one.

Since April, Fresenious Dialysis Centers is badgering me for $135 for something in March for treatments that were no different from every other month – and every month they have received nearly $3,000 from Medicare. I’ve spent endless hours trying to reach them by phone; Sometimes I leave a message on a machine. They do not return my calls. Sometimes even the machine won’t answer my calls. Yet, stubborn me, I refuse to pay $135 for what I feel sure is a result of a mistaken entry in a computer system.

So what do I do?

I’m going to go to my recliner, let Charlie climb on my lap, and pick up “Bess of Hardwick” loaned to me by my friend Sally. In the 16th Century Bess married four times and became the richest woman in England, next to Queen Elizabeth I. Bess’s major problem, besides husbands dying (and she always found a richer one) was finding suitable mates for her eight children. Oh, there was plague and women dying in childbirth, and Mary Queen of Scotts conniving to take Elizabeth’s throne. But after 400 years that’s not a worry for us today. It makes fun reading.

My worries should be resolved in the next month. Our countries problems will take longer. I won’t live to see it, but I hope in 50 years the world will learn to live in peace, presided over by the great powers: China, the Muslim League, Brazil, Europe, and, I trust, the U.S.A. .

In 400 years . . . who knows? Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar ruled over empires. Well. . . . they are not forgotten. Who will remember George W. Bush or Barack Obama?