Legal disclaimers

I belong to a risk users' group with members from all around the world. While risk may not seem like a fascinating topic to you, risk has been my entire life. I grew up the youngest child of two insurance agents. When my bonehead brothers or I did anything stupid (normal, you know, just what the other kids did), other kids got grounded and we got the "you're going to get us sued!" lecture.

As the baby, as my older brothers went off to the service (Yeah, Coast Guard), my parents would come home from work and the three of us would sit at the dinner table while I listened to them talk about sideswipes, binders, deductibles and other fascinating insurance talk. I felt invisible.

I was a '56 model boomer, and to me the 1970s were a blur of the end of the People's Park days, LSD, leather-painted purses, the Berkeley cops hosing down Telegraph Avenue with bleach to drive the junkies away (it didn't work) and free love that had terribly high hidden price tag.

When I started, at about 22, trying to figure out how I was going to make a living, all the vocabulary I had was the lingo of the streets and the language of insurance. I was fortunate that my mother nagged me into taking typing and shorthand (her hit on it was I would work until I got married) and if I could type, I could always get a job. So I found a job in an insurance agency in Phoenix.

They hired me as a back-up to the personal lines agent and a receptionist; however, I soon found my forte in claims. People would call in, hysterical, and what to them, perhaps backing over the neighbor's toy poodle Fluffy, was to me a walk in the park. I had seen crises. I could always calm them down and even make them laugh.

To make a long post short, my boss would say: "When you're awake, you do a really great job" and I began to get some self-esteem, although I was still drinking and using. It took another year, but I decided I needed more help than methadone maintenance was providing me. I went to the office manager and told her I had a drinking problem--that I needed to go into treatment.

They convened a tribunal, behind closed doors, then summoned me in. "We've been watching you," said the office manager, "and we're sure you have narcolepsy." (I think they forgot a syllable!) They already had an appointment for me at Scripps in San Diego for evaluation.

I could never stand up for myself; there seemed to be nothing there to stand up for. I felt like a walking bag of crap. This time, however, and I'm sure it was God working in my life, I insisted. I was going to St. Luke's.

Anyway, that was 23 years ago and I didn't stay clean after treatment. It tooks two more years (as I heard one addict say, "My bottom had a hole in it), but I came in and out of the rooms and since the doors swing both ways, I finally "got it." I celebrated 21 years in December 2005, through the grace of a loving Higher Power and the people in the rooms.

So now, I live a bit of a double life. I'm an insurance professional (now a full-time freelance writer specializing in, get this, recovery, dogs and insurance) who rarely breaks her anonymity in the business world, because it's dangerous to break one's anonymity for a variety of reasons, not just for my protection.

But as I was saying, my risk group offer me fantastic free advice about insurance (and sometimes life as we're currently giving a fed-up father advice about how to deal with his rebellious teenage son. What I did find odd was that someone quoted Bill Gate's words of wisdom to tell the boy--Bill Gates? Apparently whoever suggested it didn't follow the history of Microsoft and the hundreds of companies he stepped on to get where he is today, the Bill Gates Foundation aside. But hey, he's a spawn of Satan, what can I say? I'm convinced that the anti-Christ will be an attorney.)

Lawyers, that brings me back to my original topic, legal disclaimers. There are a few lawyers on the list group, and their legal disclaimers are about 500 words and totally clog up my digest and simply shout: "Look at me! I'm a lawyer and I'm important."

Which leads me to my next train of thought. ("Is there a caboose to this train?" you may be asking right now. Yes, there is.)

I had a thought a few years ago but not the will to act on it. I find I'm a great thought generator and a poor initiator. If you need ideas, I'm your idea gal. Here's my thought. Last time I checked, www.electnolawyers.org is still available. Don't you think we should stop electing lawyers and start putting ordinary folks back into office, guys and gals who have had a job and cared for aging parents in home and not been able to find health insurance and not had rich fathers to fund their campaigns and clean up their messes and wondered how the heck they were going to pay for their child's college education?

It's not a radical idea. Is there anyone out there with the juevos to start this little organization? Or am I dreaming? Well, alas, I must run to the post office and mail my taxes. God is alive, magic is afoot. But the taxman still cometh.