A Stitched Foot, a Gingerbread House & the Public Welfare Office

Last night, present day ...


The white car was driving at about 15 miles per hour, and I was determined to catch it.


My foot, wrapped in an ace bandage and still pulsing from the five stitches earlier this week, was an afterthought as I tucked a small brown box under my arm and took off running after the red tail lights. My breath puffed white in the crisp air as I raced and shouted and waved my arms over my head.


"Stop!" I yelled, hoping that they'd hear me. "Stop! Stop!"


I could hear the "Mission Impossible" theme song in my mind with each pounding step on the pavement. The car hesitated for one moment while the driver turned right. "Yes!" I said to myself, then, "Noooooo!" as the tire gave a short squeal while she took off into the night.


"Dammit," I whispered, standing under a streetlight and looking dejectedly at the box in my hand. I trudged back into the Cracker Barrel.


"A guest left this gingerbread house ornament behind," I told a manager who was barking orders at short-order cooks.


"What do you want me to do about it?"


"Can you look up her receipt on the register so that I can get her name?"


"And do what with it?"


I stared at him. The answer was so clear to me.


"So I can call her."


"And how would you do that from the receipt?"


I paused again. Now waitresses were forming a circle and watching this conversation with amused curiosity.


"I'd do a Google search on her last name and find her, probably on whitepages.com, and I'd call her and tell her to get her ornament and that I just chased her in the parking lot, but I lost her."


He turned back to the lineup of steaming food to send out orders to the dining room.


"Well, you can do that yourself. Just ask the cashiers to look it up for you if you think you can find her."


At least one waitress snickered, and I realized that I was allowing my two worlds to collide. During my 20-year career as a news journalist, I was accustomed to chasing cars, yelling at people in parking lots to get a news story and going to all lengths to find their phone number so that I could get the scoop on my competition. But I realized how absurd I looked, standing there with a gift-wrapped box containing a $6 gingerbread house for someone's stupid Christmas tree, which wasn't even up yet. After all, we only just celebrated Halloween.


I returned to the gift store, scribbled a note explaining that someone might return for it and left it on my manager's desk.


Then I realized with much chagrin that my little stunt had cost me. My foot began burning in my shoe. The stitches. I'd forgotten that I had stitches. Would I have to pay more for a followup visit to the doctor, just because I'd confused news story gathering with customer care?


And you know ... I then reminded myself that even if that's the case, it's worth it if I can get health insurance for both me and my child.


Because last year at this time, I had to do the unthinkable so that my little boy could go to the doctor.


***************************************************************************


December 22, 2010.


Three days before Christmas.


An icy rain, the type that goes straight into your bones, with a swirling wind to add a dash of misery, is absolutely pounding on my head. I'm not dressed for this day, wearing clogs with no socks and slogging through mud puddles.


I feel as if I've been transported into the world of Charles Dickens, and I'm one of his main characters in dreary 19th-century London.


I'm headed to the public welfare office, you see, to get health insurance for my child. I can't afford to put him on the Kentucky Access plan. This is my one shot. Otherwise, I'll move back in with my mother and give up my rented home so that I can pay for insurance for both of us.


I'm struck when I enter the window-less room. Old people wearing thin sweaters. Mothers with infants tucked into car seats. Children with yellowed skin from lack of proper diet, hacking liquid coughs. I look at my winter coat and feel like I'm clad like Princess Grace of Monaco.


I wait for 10 minutes at a window, while clerks laugh behind the glass, look at computer screens and answer a phone that won't stop ringing. Finally, someone opens the pane. "Yes?" she barks.


"I'm here to apply for health insurance for my little boy."


"Oh. Go over there and fill out that paperwork, and bring it back here." She closes the window in my face.


I find a pencil with worn-down lead and fill out the particulars ... ages, people in the household ... my income ... and the reason I'm here. I wait another five minutes at the window for someone to briefly open it, snatch the paper and direct me to sit down.


"Hey," someone whispers. I turn to see a woman with a toddler on her knee. "Make sure they stamp that and give you a copy."


"Stamp it?"


"Yeah," another woman says. "If you don't have a stamp, they'll lose it. You'll come in here a month from now, and they'll tell you that you were never here. Get them to stamp it with a date on it so that you can prove you handed the paper to them."


"Um-hmm," a third woman says, nodding. "I learnt that the haaaaaaard way."


I looked around the room and all eyes were fixed on me, all heads nodding.


"Thank you. Thank you so much for the advice. This is my first time here," I offer.


"We know," someone else says.


I sit uncomfortably on a metal chair and wait. The window opens again, and someone calls my name. A young man is holding my paperwork. We discuss my application in front of the room of curious listeners.


"This shouldn't be a problem," he says. "You'll get a letter in the mail, either way."


"Thank you. What do I do now?"


He smiles. "You leave."


"Oh." I pause, then I look over my shoulder at my newest best friends, whose eyebrows are in their foreheads. "Hey, um, before I leave, could I get a copy of that, stamped with today's date?"


He hesitates. "Sure," he says. "Not a problem."


I sit back down. Someone places their hand on my shoulder.


"Good job," she says.


I've never felt so bereft in my life.


Tune in for the next part of the tale, "Mission Impossible: Health Insurance."