Life or Death Insurance

I really need to check my insurance.....  My life insurance, that is. 

Just to make sure. 

We always have to be certain to keep our eyes on such things, don’t we? Particularly now, because I am worried that I just might, perhaps, have been.

Insured that is.

That's a scary thought, isn't it?

What do you mean “I should be” ? How can you say that? 

Are you part of the tribe that believes that having one's life insured is 'The Right Thing To Do’ , like paying your TV licence, or pouring milk into a glass instead of drinking from the bottle?  Well I disagree.

Why?  Well isn't it obvious? Surely being worth a tidy sum IF you pop off to meet your maker is just putting temptation out there?  Especially when BEING ALIVE isn't keeping your family in the lavish lifestyle they lustfully long for?

Which is why I should check. 

They do that on TV, don't they?  On the detective programs -  they check. But it's always AFTER the fact. Whenever someone suspiciously drives off a cliff, or gets fatally fowled up in an industrial meat mincer (remind me not to watch CSI during dinner again), then a whole lot of cops busy themselves enquiring whether anyone may have secretly insured that person's life, in order to profit from his or her demise.   (Admittedly, I have always wondered if it wouldn’t have been NICER if these lawmen had picked up on the $3 Billion policy BEFORE the poor fellow slipped on the highly polished floor when the lights failed during a midnight call-out to his wife's brother's abattoir?  Don't you think?)

This is a theory that came to me the other night.  Well, if 4.01am in the morning is still night. Via an encyclopaedia.
 
No, I was not reading an encyclopaedia at four in the morning.  I have better things to do at that time, which are all sleep.
 
Normally. 

But sleep is a thing of the past now.  Now I believe there may be a conspiracy going on in my home.  It's my wife, Mrs Ed… and her dog.

Let me explain.  I may have mentioned before that there is no love lost between me and Mrs Ed's dog:- the World's Hugest Yorkie (which forms the mysteriously apt acronym:-WHY).  I won't go into detail except to say that WHY was supposed to be a 'cutesy little pedigree tea-cup lap dog' when my beloved spouse acquired her back in those good old pre-recession days, but it grew up to be just slightly smaller than an Irish wolfhound, as cute as Hannibal Lecter, and with the social etiquette of Attila the Hun.
  
Anyway sometime in May this year I was bamboozled by Mrs Ed, who was cunning enough to phone me from the bottle store.  She  suggested that WHY (the mutt) should be allowed to sleep inside for the duration of winter and would I like her to bring home a sixpack of 'Amber Nectar' ? Of course my resounding “Yes!!!” for the latter was taken as confirmation for both, and the dog took up winter residence in our bedroom, much to my chagrin.

Once Spring arrived (1st Sept), I announced that the dog should be back outside, and Mrs Ed said the noxious hound needed three weeks' grace -  apparently this same dog which can't understand the simple instruction “Get Out You Hideous Creature!” needs time to gain 'closure' on her eviction. 

And this is where my story picks up.  Because the WHY mutt has not used this allotted time for ‘closure’ at all. Oh no. I believe that the conniving canine is in cahoots with Mrs ED to effect my demise!  How? (No, that's not the name of our other dog.) Let me explain.

Call me strange, old fashioned, perhaps a stick in the mud, or even a wet blanket, but I have a thing about a dog peeing in my bedroom.
 
I just don't like it.

Indeed if I was Julie Andrews I might say it's not anywhere near “Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens” on my list of favourite things. In fact it's right at the bottom, with only disguised avocado dip below it. The dog knows this, apparently, and so spent the first year of its horrid life making sure we had wet carpet patches to greet us every morning, on my side of the bed.  Until of course I booted it outside. 

(Oh it was such a memorable boot - I would have got three points if it hadn't just caught the top of the wall and fallen back into our veggie patch.) 

When it was allowed back in the following winter it realised that in order to secure its stay in luxury it should control its bladder and simply whine if it felt 'the call'.  Of course this suited Mrs Ed perfectly, it would take the whine of a six billion ton flaming meteorite scorching through the Earth's crust in our back garden to rouse her from her slumber.

So muggins (that's me) got to scramble out of bed, stumble downstairs with eyes 95% shut, brain 98% asleep and the WHY mutt skippedy-skipping in front of me, open the back door, and then climb back up to bed. 
But now something has changed.  The dog has gotten devious, and as I mentioned, I think it has formulated a plan with Mrs Ed.

Perhaps she has promised it 100% inside sleeping privileges in the event of my death? 

It still wakes me at four but then, as I am snorting myself to a Neanderthal sort of upright position, instead of skipping down the stairs in front of me…. The WHY mutt lies on the top one. Still.  Like a fur-lined puff-adder. 

 Of course I don't see it.  I dislike it intensely, so why on earth would I bother to wrestle my eyes open to get four-in-the-morning visual of the object of my affliction?

So what happens?  I tread on it.  And I slip. The WHY mutt yelps victoriously as I am launched confusedly into that cyberspace that takes over when the floor isn't there.  I spin.  I turn.  My back cracks on the balustrade, my head collides with a picture of my mother-in-law on the wall .... but somehow it seems I might just manage to save myself by planting my right foot firmly on….. an encyclopaedia? 

I ask you now, nay I IMPLORE you, to be honest.  Do you think this is an ongoing attempt on my life… or do encyclopaedia's actually belong on the stairs?

  Am I being paranoid or did I miss the life lesson that instructed
“When you have no-where to stack them, place all 16 volumes in piles of varying sizes on the right hand area of each of your four bottom stairs. This is good housekeeping.” ? 

Did I?

The more I think about it the more I realize there's something amiss. She... nay THEY are up to something.   Like the toaster she plugged in and balanced on the side of my bath, 'in case you need a snack after washing your hair'…..?  Or the broken glass I found in my mashed potato….?? Or the familiar smell of petrol that seems to have been impregnated in my favourite braai jacket ....???

In fact, I'm going to get have it out with Mrs Ed, I really am.  Just as soon as I get back from the abattoir…. It belongs to a friend of her's and they've asked me to go round there tonight and find out why the lights go off every time they turn on the industrial meat mincer…..  they've even offered me a case of Amber Nectar for my trouble…
.