Last week was Spring Break in Indiana. So, in celebration of, here is a variety of bon-bons of randomness, scrawled from the notes and memories of last week. You undoubtedly would have preferred chocolate. Well, yes, but I have not yet figured out how to do that . And so: my Spring Break in Review.
1.) A four-ish year old girl waved at me as I swam at the pool. She looked through the window, smiled at me and waved. She wore a purple ruffled skirt and a lemon yellow cardigan. I named her “Lily.” Actually, I named her “Lily Colleen.” She made my day. Her smile made my week.
2.) Also at the gym, two 16-ish year old girls wrapped themselves in Saran Wrap, grabbed their cell phones and occupied the sauna. This led to the quasi-mathematical equation:
2(16 y.o.f. + Saran Wrap) = Spring Break
Also, they’re 16 years old and perfect. The Saran Wrap is hardly necessary.
Also, squared: 16 year old girls who are clearly routine denizens of the tanning bed smell like bacon when they wrap themselves in Saran Wrap and sit in the sauna. This is disconcerting. And I am inexpressibly happy that Spring Break is over and the sauna has been returned to the grown-ups. The grown-ups, needless to say, have not the time nor the energy for Saran Wrapping of the Self in Public (and would be embarrassed, or one would hope, if they smelled of bacon while so doing).
3.) The Broccoli Analogy does not work. In the health care arguments in front of the Supreme Court, the argument was that if the government could mandate purchasing health insurance, they then could mandate purchasing broccoli or gym memberships. Only: broccoli is to the food market as Acme Health Insurance is to the overall health insurance market. Everyone is already in both the health care and food markets: each individual is already in both generic markets, sooner or later (in the case of food, presumably, hopefully, daily.) But an individual mandate to purchase a health insurance policy (among a variety of health insurance policies) is NOT the same thing as being mandated to purchase broccoli. It would be more analogous to purchase food (or actually, to purchase a voucher for food, though this complicates things.)
Broccoli is to Food as Acme Insurance Plan B is to Health Insurance (not to mention health care.)
The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) mandates the purchase of Health Insurance, not specifically Acme’s.
The government cannot mandate the purchase of Acme Insurance. It cannot mandate the purchase of broccoli.
The argument was silly to begin with. And the broccoli analogy was nasty-bad (or, “wrong-headed” in current politico-speech) from start to finish. It’s like SAT Prep 101. Seriously.
I’m not even a lawyer. I haven’t taken the L-SAT. And I can figure this out. SCOTUS, it’s on you.
4.) Every day at work, first thing in the morning, I reach the holder-of-time-cards. It’s a vertical workplace Rack-O, minus the fun. There are 30-ish employees and 25 slots so the hunt for my very own time card is an actual hunt (I’m usually buried behind someone, and never the same someone, which explains the hunt). And instead of the rational thought, which would be “where is my time card,” my thought is always: “ What is my name? What is my name?” This is an irrational question. I do not know from whence it comes. Oh, my dear Interwebs, what does it mean that this is my first thought? I really do know my name. So, what’s wrong with my head?
