At what point did my parents stop reminding me to go to the dentist? Sure, I’ve never ever gone more than 6 months without going. But why have years gone by without any of my parents reminding me to do this? It’s important. When did they stop? And why?
I was pondering this yesterday as, in celebration of my 26th birthday, I became one of the 47 million Americans who are uninsured. That’s right, if I broke my leg today I’d be broke in a hot second from all the medical bills because I am that idiot who doesn’t understand how to buy insurance. Because up until yesterday, I’d been on the glorious train that is my parents health insurance. Let me back on…please…I beg you.
To be fair, I’ve tried. Healthcare.gov doesn’t always work. After many attempts, it tells me that it has sent an email to my email address, the next step in the process, and yet it has not. I’ve tried and tried and some days, the whole dang website has been unavailable.
But let’s not make excuses. There were other ways to get insurance, I just haven’t tried them (yet). I tell myself that I’ve just been too busy. So I guess that means I’ll have to cut back on my incredibly reckless lifestyle of averaging 3 hours of Netflix a day, doing zero athletic activities, and setting a world record for the number of consecutive days I’ve worn the same pair of yoga pants.
I’m shocked by how laid back my parents have been about this. I needed them to start nagging me about it back in January. To tell me that if I didn’t get it together that I’d be uninsured and to stress how bad that is. Why don’t they lecture me about stuff anymore? I needed those lectures and I still need them. Parents, get it together!
Some other things I’d like my parents to casually harass me about:
- Get an oil change, Nadine. Your car is hella old (Okay parents, please don’t say hella. I just really wanted to.) and you need to be kind to it.
- Floss. Every day.
- Save money. Where is your emergency fund? You have to have 5 months of living expenses in an emergency fund!
- Are you making a direct deposit to your IRA? No, Nadine, $20 per pay check will not be enough for you to retire. Ever.
- Don’t use credit cards. Don’t you dare.
- Why do you wait 4 weeks to do laundry? You are a slob.
- Stop letting your gas tank get to empty every time and then having a panic attack when you realize that you may actually run out of gas this time.
These can all be followed with phrases like “we taught you better than that”. Seriously. I’ll take the guilt just for the reminders. Parents, you don’t stop being parents just because your kid is an adult. In all fairness, they’re still exceptionally good at that other parent thing: unconditional love. Plus, much of the time they treat me like a *gasp* equal and friend. And yeah, yeah, I know I’m old enough that I should be doing all those things on my own. But still, I miss the reminders.
On that note, I’m going to be indoors for the next two days as we get hit with another epic snowstorm. Can’t risk slipping on ice and breaking a hip.
HI, I’M NADINE.
I left California after college to start my life on the east coast. East & is what happened after that.
