…followed subsequently (in no particular order) by anger, confusion, anxiety, desperation, angst, loathing, outrage, panic, apathy, and depression until finally building into a veritable quagmire of frustration and despair that makes me regret having even walked out to the mailbox in the first place.

No offense to our mailman, of course – he was just doing his job, for he knows not what he delivers from that canvas sack of his…

Nonetheless, rest assured that eventually the incessant sobbing does subside and I can finally begin to cope with the idea that such intense cruelty can be found in a single, business-sized envelope.  I mean, it’s bad enough that you’re just getting over being horribly sick with an unsightly rash that you’d probably rather not talk about in a public setting, thank you very much, but then to also find yourself belittled with line item after line item of senseless doctor babble, each trailed by a seemingly random dollar amount that really makes you wonder if they just pick these charges out of a hat, or possibly some sort of particularly cruel BINGO machine that all of the doctors gather around after a long day of making people wait uncomfortably in paper clothing before finally coming in to talk to them for upwards of 45 seconds.  I don’t know about you, but for me it’s typically more than this feeble, sometimes embarrassingly itchy man can bear.

I think the problem is that when it comes to billing, doctors pretty much have it made because they can pretty much just put down whatever they want on that invoice and people like us have to pay it.  Really, who’s going to argue with them?  “What’s that, Mr. Sevener?  You have a problem with my bill? So how is that severe rash of yours doing, Mr. Sevener?  What’s that?  It’s feeling better now because of my medicine??? Well, if you feel as though my services were overpriced, Mr. Sevener, maybe I should just take back the rest of those antibiotics … I’m sure that hideous skin problem will probably take care of itself eventually, anyways…”

That kind of upper hand certainly can’t be enjoyed with just any profession.  I know that I certainly couldn’t get away with it as a writer, that’s for sure!

Editor: What kind of nonsense are you trying to pull here with this bill you sent me, Sevener?!  $44 for a Dictionary Referral Fee … $29 for Adjective & Alliteration Awareness … $14.95 recurring for Procrastination Prevention Insurance … are you just making this stuff up as you go along?!  It was just a humor column about socks, for god’s sake – you’re lucky I’m even paying you at all…

Me: Well, Mr. Jameson, if you’re not happy with my perfectly reasonable fee schedule, then maybe we should just forego my humor column in the Bugle this week and see what your readers have to laugh about then.

Editor: Whatever!  We’ll just run an old Marmaduke in its place instead.  Folks love that dog – he thinks he’s people!  Now get the hell out of my office and don’t come back until you can bring me pictures of Spider-Man…

Of course, I suppose one could argue that writing about cleaning out the refrigerator and being afraid of the dark isn’t exactly in the same realm as, oh say, curing diseases and saving people’s lives, but it still doesn’t make coughing up another $175 for a Lower Dipolar Epilaptric Adjunction any easier to swallow.  Maybe if I just send back my payment with a few line items of my own – let’s see, $12 for your standard Wallet Extraction Tax, $23 for the Paper Gown Trauma Recovery Fee, and of course, the most important of all – $85 for the Hour and a Half Spent on WebMD to Make Sure All of This Crap Actually Somehow Relates to What You Said was Wrong with Me Fee.

That’s right – never challenge a writer to a game of making stuff up, doc.  Your check for $55 is in the mail…