This is completely off-topic, just because it came up yesterday, so enjoy the momentary lack of pointing out all things stupid, political and social.

Although this is kind of stupid if you think about it.

So, my mother died a couple of months ago. Yesterday, I finally got the paperwork for her life insurance in the mail. They’re obviously not in any hurry to pay out, not that I care. Except they kind of forgot one important detail…

They didn’t mention how much the policy was for!

Now granted, I already know. They probably figure that you would, although there are plenty of cases where you could make the case that you wouldn’t have a clue.

It’s all paperwork to fill out for the disposition of the policy. It says “if it’s more than this amount, do this, if it’s less than that amount, do that!”

What if you don’t know how much you’re getting? What if the person in question put you down as a beneficiary but didn’t tell you about it? It would be kind of helpful to be told what kind of money is on the line, right?

It’s one of those stupid things we run across every single day, where we wonder “who in their right mind wouldn’t understand that?” I mean, I was never consulted. She never asked me if I wanted to be the co-beneficiary of her estate. It was just “oh, right, you’re getting half!” I didn’t know how much that was, I didn’t care and I still don’t, even though I do know because I helped with her assets. What if I hadn’t though? What if I’d been on the other side of the country? How could I fill out the paperwork?

Granted, I don’t need the money. It’s going to be more zeros rolling into the bank account, nothing more. At least my mother’s estate isn’t as frustrating as my wife’s parents’. We still get calls from the trust that say “we found another account that we need closed in the next 30 days. Where do you want this $100,000?” I don’t know. It’s been over a year and we’re still finding stuff. We still have three safety deposit boxes that we have no access to because we have no clue where the keys are, but they’re 150 miles from the house and the only way to get in is to coordinate with a locksmith to be there whenever we can get out that way to drill out the locks. I mean, I could do it myself, but they won’t permit that. So, they just sit there until we figure it out.

We’ve got a storage unit just sitting there too. We have no keys. The only way we can get into it is to have a security code, which we don’t have and the only way to get a security code, and get the name switched over to ours for the hour or so it’ll take to empty it, is to go in during the week, which we can’t do, because they’re  closed on weekends. Oh, and there’s a lock on it that we don’t have a key for and they only cut locks on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which we can’t be there for anyhow. I have to figure out if it’s their lock or our lock, because if it’s our lock, I’ll be there with bolt cutters and a grinder to take it off, their permission or not. At least we sort of know what’s in that.

This is all stuff that ought to be pretty simple if the world wasn’t filled with dumb people. For the storage unit, for instance, they sent us the paperwork for changing the account. All they need are the death certificates and our signature, but they won’t accept that except in person, during the week. It’s not like they need originals, we can just send them electronic copies but they don’t want that. We could put it in an envelope and mail it to them, but they don’t want that. They want us standing there. Apparently, they don’t think anyone else in the world works but them.

These people are idiots. I am sick of idiots.