So, my health insurance sent me an EOB (explanation of benefits) and I have to laugh lest I cry. When my hot EMTs transported me from the number one psychiatric hospital to the worst in LA County, they looked at my chart and laughed because it was so absurd.
"I've never heard of John George." -Everyone at UCLA.

When my dad fell onto his spinal cord at his unsafe work environment, he was paralyzed. Nerveless. He couldn't reach the phone. He was found by a coworker who called my mom. He was worried about ambulance costs.

More than worried—terrified. He still had the bandwidth to argue with my mother. "No! Just drive me yourself. Ambulances cost too much money." My mother could have just rolled her eyes, but she feels like no one listens to her as an Asian woman. She feels her own husband listens to his daughter and not his wife. "No, you idiot! We are calling 911! You fell on your spine, you nitwit!"

"Well if I wasn't paralyzed, scared like a little girl, thinking of my daughter and wondering how she's doing, calculating the costs of the hospitalization and ambulance, suddenly thinking about accounting, AND a middle school dropout with undiagnosed ADHD, I would believe you! But you are the gaslighter of our family!"

My mom was on the phone already, screaming at the operator in broken English. She knew as an Asian female immigrant she had to scream to be listened to. That's why her daughter hung up the phone on her indefinitely. Her daughter doesn't like yelling. She prefers to seethe and write poetry, with a cigarette dangling from her fingers. She forgot what she wanted to write next. Oh well, her cat is crying.