Playing It Safe
![Your Life Insurance Policy](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTiqdqE8dLR0tzzM0xN1KvSRletLSosgX2wK77tN5RQ-XyPhZaFQv5gFKk4Oy95Hbh_pr91TTOuW5d0XqRyRtgsZtTdFNtFC4gRJT9g_rlMRAB4uhF5hkih6jNx9SHYdziZRwhCQ/s200/lifeinsurance.jpg)
Perhaps idiosyncratically, I choose to write a check and deliver it by hand to the insurance office, located just around the corner from where I live. I’m sure I could probably pay online or set up some sort of automatic withdrawal from my bank to take care of it, but for some reason I like to pay this one in person. Might well be some sort of hidden psychological explanation for that, if one were to search hard enough for one.
I first purchased the policy last summer shortly after leaving that full-time “day job” I’d had for many years. The job included some nominal life insurance -- like a year’s salary or something -- and so losing that I decided to get a new policy once I’d struck out on my own.
I recall going into the office and meeting the agent last spring. Gave him all the necessary info. And perhaps some not-so-necessary, too, as he was a friendly fellow with whom it was easy enough to chat. Such conversations are probably not altogether without meaning, actually. It helps, I imagine, to know a little bit about a person who is about to take out a life insurance policy on himself.
At one point in our conversation -- after terms had been reached and there was nothing left to do but fill out all the required boxes -- I brought up James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity (1943), one of my favorite novels about which I’ve written here before. That’s the one about an insurance agent who falls for a femme fatale with whom he brazenly plots to murder her husband so they can collect on a policy he sells to them.
!['Double Indeminity' (1944)](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIVRVh26AHxv5SG86ZRonSBNRm0_HGGHe4TIAGNG3ohKPyFksI-mES2nNv7LdwHMqOaDSaAcfYqopF4nJQ54mBivIA1MqDNsHN8vFiJOp0BiBe-OqUcn_bABoCPa5ISBMytTqsNQ/s200/doubleindemnity.jpg)
I keep forgetting to ask my agent if he ever did see the film. Thinking back, I guess it probably wouldn’t be so great for your insurance agent to say he was a big fan of Double Indemnity.
I remember asking a similar question at a dentist visit long ago. A particularly unpleasant dentist visit, in fact.
I can’t recall all of the details, but I was in need of some sort of filling work, and the dentist -- a new one to me -- had some sort of newfangled procedure that he employed. Whatever it was, lasers were involved, and novocaine was not.
At some point I was starting to become increasingly aware of the pain he was causing me. Perhaps you’ve experienced something similar, maybe even at the poker tables when things aren’t going well.
I can deal with this, you say. It’s all good. Then, suddenly, you are hit with a kind of wait-a-minute-this-is-much-worse-than-I-thought-in-fact-I-hate-hate-this kind of revelation. The sort of epiphany that’s usually followed by some immediate action to counter the direction things are going. If you are in a state to do so, that is.
Was too long ago for me to remember exactly what I said, but I did somehow bring it to my tormentor’s attention that I was hurting. Really hurting. His response surprised me a little. Rather than show concern, he instead seemed to offer some sort of rationalization. Something to do with the new method.
!['The Marathon Man' (1976)](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM1v-VYpAi7lUPwPmD2KIqYPQWD5DoUXV4i4f5q14eSOIIclwcliSspRiNPGE20GAr0k07MS8cSVlW6FJkCkK1OGLve9ipV7Wiurw9M2uKI2W5CeQBEew-nrOeqbozMI_KkrxPvA/s200/themarathonman.png)
You remember that one? With Laurence Olivier as the Nazi war criminal drilling the teeth of hapless Dustin Hoffman while asking him repeatedly a question which has no meaning to him -- “Is it safe?”
In fact, The dentist had seen the John Schlesinger-directed thriller. And far from finding my alluding to it humorous, he was Not Amused.
Uh oh, I thought. Seem to have hit a nerve.
“A live, freshly-cut nerve is infinitely more sensitive...”
Olivier’s slow cadence pulsed through my brain, surfacing amid the wavy rhythm of the laser’s hum. I don’t remember much after that.
Don’t believe I scheduled a return visit to that particular dentist. And maybe I won’t bother to bring up Double Indeminity again to my agent. No reason to give him any ideas.
Labels: *shots in the dark, Double Indemnity, James M. Cain, The Marathon Man
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