Walking Jukebox

Do you remember a show called the "Banana Splits?" It was a Saturday morning kids' show when I was young.

I was cooking dinner the other day, when unexplicably, I suddenly started singing the theme song to the Banana Splits.

"Tra la la, la la la la, tra la la, la la la la, we'll have fun for everyone. Lot's of fun for everyone."

Barb started cracking up.

Where did that song suddenly come from?

I swear that I do have an infliction. I have a million songs in my head and one can pop out at anytime. I might not know all the words. But that's alright. I seem to be able to make them up as I go.

This morning I started singing Joe Jackson's "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" I haven't heard that song for years and years. But, suddenly, there it was.

Barb knows lyrics. It amazes me how she memorizes songs. And I mean she has them down to a "T." Her memory fascinates me.

I'm more of a philosophical guy. I tend to study and look at big pictures and have to work hard to collect my facts and details.

Barb is just the opposite. She'd rather leave the big philosophical stuff alone. But she is all over the details.

It's tough. If I screw up and do something wrong...I guarantee that she will remember it. And she does...but she's pretty nice to me anyway.

Barb and I are different. But we're a team. We are one. We accept our weaknesses and strengths and try to compliment one another appropriately. We talk. We're best friends. We never argue. What's the point? We just find middle ground.

I'm not stubborn. I'll meet in the middle. I try to avoid conflict at all cost.

Quite frankly the only time I have to get worked up in life anymore is when I have yet another billing snafu with my health insurer. It seems like I'm always juggling a problem with Aetna.

I had to make a call this week. I've taken an approach of trying to be really nice to the customer service representatives even if they're not nice, nor smart, nor helpful. Getting them mad just seems to make things worse.

This week I have a bill that both the hospital and Aetna agree is not my responsibility. But since the hospital and Aetna do not agree on which one of them should accept responsibility for this billing they're just trying to brush it aside and hope that I will pay it.

As I entered my first in a series of phone calls to try to straighten this out for the third time, I said to Barb, "Well here goes two-hours of my life that I'll never get back."

Still no results.

I don't know. Are they asking me to get mad?