I'm liking this rant thing... how about a family one?

The BBQ Pit
1

OK. So my mother, unbeknownst to me, has been keeping a life insurance policy on me for the past several years.

This year, she decided that it was time for ME to start paying the premium, and turned it over to me. I paid it once, before I realized that continuing to do so was sort of silly, for several reasons:

a) I have life insurance through my job, AND insurance that will pay off my house if I kick the bucket. So those two things together oughta be enough to bury me and pay off whatever dangling bills I have.

b) Because I don’t have a spouse or children (just two dogs and two rats), and my sister has BOTH, the scales are somewhat unbalanced, here. I mean, if I keeled over RIGHT NOW, my mom would be my beneficiary. But if I die tomorrow, and she dies the next day, honey, my sister RAKES IT IN (well, OK, it’s not like we’re rolling in dough, or anything, but work with me, here)–she gets life insurance, a house, a car, and whatever’s “in the bank” (checking, savings, investments, etc.) for both me AND my mom (granted, she’s devastated because we’re both dead, but stay with me…). On the other hand, if my SISTER dies tomorrow and my mom dies the next day, I get… half of my mother’s assets, and the rest go to my sister’s husband (I do still get the same amount of devastation as my sister would, however). OK, this is really making me sound selfish and unloving, but my point is WHY should I feel compelled to leave extra money, possibly to someone I’m not even related to, by paying for an EXTRA life insurance policy?

So I told my mom that, since she was the one who’d been paying for the extra policy on my life, SHE should cash it in–get a new outfit, take a trip, whatever.

There was a little bit of argument, but eventually she agreed.

She used the $$$ to buy life insurance policies on my sister’s kids (twins, 10 months old) for the next seven years. Groovy, right?

Well. She informed me the other day that when the seven years are up, or at whatever point that SHE ceases to grace this earth, it shall become MY job to pay for the life insurance on the twins.

WTF???

Her reasoning is sound; my sister will just let the policy lapse, she says (and this is probably true; my mom had a life insurance policy on my sister, too, but when she turned it over to my sister, that’s just what happened), ESPECIALLY if she’s without a job…

Now don’t get me wrong. I love my sister. I ADORE my niece and nephew, and will do all I can to make sure they have happy, plentiful lives. But why should I pay so that my sister and her husband will have money if something happens to the twins (God forbid)?

What, I reasoned, if I’M without a job in seven years?

You won’t be, my mother said.

I told her I wouldn’t do it–perhaps out of principle, perhaps out of sheer PMS–and she swears she’ll haunt me from the grave if I don’t. :rolleyes:

I told her I’d have her ass exorcised. :smiley:

I think another issue at work here is that I’m tremendously resentful of OBLIGATION. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I do something for someone to be nice (like go over to my mom’s house and make us a lovely, schmancy breakfast on a Saturday morning) and it then becomes my JOB (I guess you can figure out how I spend my Saturday mornings now… :rolleyes: ). So part of it is that I’m pissy that I should be EXPECTED to do this…

…yet why do I feel guilty for sticking to my “NO” guns? :frowning:

Oh–and did I mention that this is my OLDER sister (by NINE YEARS)???

2

This is bullshit. I am getting mad just thinking about it. Is it some kind of fucked up tradition in your family to take out random policies on each other (without even telling them sometimes). Do you give funeral plots to each other on Christmas too. I think that your mother is planning on wiping, you, your sister, and the twins out in some terrible accident and living like a queen for the rest of her dark years. Don’t dismiss it, I saw something just like it on Unsolve Mysteries once.

Cancel all of those policies and lock her away someplace where she can’t hurt anyone. Why a grandmother would even think of taking out life insurance policies on her grandkids is beyond me. A life insurance policy is not a lottery ticket (maybe it is for her). It is a way to replave income for dependents in case the breadwinner dies. How much income are the twins pulling in anyway?

3

Excellent subject material. No doubt, you will do well in the ranting department. I’m lumbered up with some relatives who also expect things from me which I do out of personal feelings of obligation; I feel your pain.

There is a compulsory “felching” reference which you missed, and it sounds like there could have been a few more expletives thrown in there on principle. Also, the section where you tell your mother and sister to lick the juicy dingleberries from between your toes is notably absent.

Otherwise, keep up the excellent work! Soon, you’ll be able to rant and rave like the lunatic pitizens surrounding you.

b.

4

I used to work for an insurance agancy, and the laws certainly will vary, but I’m not sure an aunt can carry life insurance on her nieces and nephews. Check with your agent, but AFAIK, in Maryland at least, you have to be a parent, grandparent or spouse.
If you mom has the policy now, and she dies, I’m pretty sure the policy will just lapse. Unless for some reason you were their legal guardian.

Your sister could certainly add them to her own policy as riders, for say $5,000 or $10,000 each, for a very nominal fee.

As you said, if you have insurance through your job, plus insurance for your mortgage (a term policy, I guess?), you’re fine. If you’re single, and have no real debts besides your house, what’s the point of all that extra insurance anyway?

5

Oh, good God, the FUNERAL PLOTS are a whole other issue! :rolleyes: Suffice it to say that I have agreed to be cremated and SHARE a plot with someone, because my mother is freaking out that we don’t have enough plots for everyone (my dear dad and lovely brother have already passed).

Quite honestly, I DO NOT believe she’s thinking of it THAT way… I think she regards it as ASsurance that nothing WILL happen to any of us.

Case in point: I recently bought a plane ticket on my VISA card, to visit a friend out of town. My mother insisted that I cancel it, and she re-purchased the ticket on her AMEX so that I’d have the travel insurance that comes automatically with AMEX-purchased tickets.

Why? Because if the plane went down, she’d get $750,000 and, she reasoned, that would NEVER happen (she wasn’t meant to be rich, she believes), so I’d be safe.

Hey, I never said my family was SANE… :smiley:

6

LOL …sounds like my mom’s way of thinking! :smiley:

Anyway, as for her thinking of insurance as an ASSURANCE, well, sorry, but you’re gonna die some day. All that extra insurance is unnecessary if you’re single.
And it does start to look a little suspicious if Mom is taking out lots of policies on her kids and grandkids with various companies. They do check things like this out. There’s a national clearinghouse for it.
As for insurance on little kids, more than $5,000 or so is not needed. Enough to pay for a burial is all you need.

7

Thank you. I am feeling the honor. The love. Am I the first Black Woman to receive such an honor? :wink:

I can’t believe I overlooked the felching reference, and I am so fond of expletives (Dammit! Muthaf*cka!) that I can’t believe I missed such an opportunity.

It must have been nervousness, my second Pit Post and all, AND being up for the honor of becoming an Official Pitizen…

Next time. Cusses and gerbils out the ass, I promise. :wink:

8

**In the Pit,more or less, color and race have little to do with anything. (except rants about color and race) We’re equal-opportunity destroyers.

Yes, that would in fact be the point.
b.

9

**In the Pit,more or less, color and race have little to do with anything. (except rants about color and race) We’re equal-opportunity destroyers.

Yes, that would in fact be the point.
b.

10

'Twas a mild snark on Halle Berry, I think.

11

hehe!

  1. I don’t think I know who Halle Barry is, and
  2. I wouldn’t cast aspersions on anyone, and
  3. Hi, opal! and
  4. sorry about the double post.

b.

12

I DEMAND A RECOUNT, YOU AWARD-REAMING, SNOT-SWILING ACADEMY FUCKERS!
:: runs in and snatches small statuette of afro pick with a middle-finger extended handle from auntie em::
I’d like to thank my family for being such greedy bastards, the racists for feeding my ethno rage and most of all, my lawyers for keeping my black ass outta jail. Thank you. Thank you all! [sup]sob[/sup]

I think your mom is worried about paying for all of your (inevitably) dead relatives final costs. It also kind of seems like she thinks you are the one that can be counted on. It also seems that the people in your family have a history of dying (your father and brother) and your mom is trying to plan ahead.

Stick to your “no”. Until the guilt eats at your soul and you hear the weeping voices of your neice and nephew in your sleep as they cry for the proper burial that they in all likelihood won’t need for 60 or 70 years.

13

Since you don’t have dependents, I don’t know why you’d want to have insurance at all. I don’t have any, and I’m married. We have plenty of money in savings and investments for my husband to carry on bravely without me in the event of my untimely demise. Likewise if he does.

My family is very similar to yours, and I have a sister seven years my senior who was never able to get her act together, and expects society and us, the family, to foot the bill for her two ankle-biters. Sorry, sis. You get absolutely zippo when I move to a higher plane.

Maybe I’m a hateful harpy, but I am firmly behind you in your desire not to pay life insurance premiums to make your older relatives’ lives a little cushier.

14

::Muffled sounds of backstage kung-fu fighting between Big Girl and auntie em::

OW! Oh, my eye, my EYYYYYYYYYYE!!!

::auntie em emerges with single tooth of afro pick imbedded in cornea and collapses, clutching pick::

OK, good point, but WHY ME??? Why do families tend to punish you for trying to have your shit together (which I don’t, really, but I guess I’m still the winner, here)???

I tell my mother all the time that I’m just going to start f*cking up completely, so that I won’t have to do anything from now on!!!

15

My mother is BIG!!! on insurance! At one point, I actually had THREE life insurance policies: one that she was paying for, one through my job, and one that was offered when I first moved here and opened a checking account (my mother was along for the ride, and insisted that I take it–I cancelled it shortly after I got my job).

When my brother bought his house, my mother insisted that he get the mortgage insurance (that pays the house off if you kick off), and even went so far as to obtain and send the paperwork to him herself. He never filled it out–never even opened the envelope–and died (suddenly–heart attack at 42) a little over a month later.

My mom and my sister bitched for WEEKS about how horrible it was that he was too cheap to pay the extra $18 per month that it would have cost him to have the insurance…

I was the only one who was like, “Why should he? He had no wife, no kids, and was a cheap muthaf*cka, so he had a butt-load in savings, not to mention a hefty life insurance policy… did we have ANY problems paying for his funeral with his money? NOPE. Do we have money left over? YES. Why are we mad, here???”

Still, somehow the poor fella came across as the Bastard Who Did Not Care About His Family…

…and when I closed on the house I bought about a year later (thanks in part to some of my brother’s money), honey my mother was RIGHT THERE, making SURE I got the mortgage insurance!!!

Granted, mine is a tiny, cheap house–but it’s paid for if I die, which makes my mother happy.

Insurance companies make a KILLING off of our asses!