Professional Name Tags Blog

At the age of twenty three I had never really come to face with tragedy in any shape or form and had lived an enormously protected and safe life till then having yet to have any dealings with insurance brokers and their ilk. It all changed when my grandfather, finally, after months and months of truly excruciating pain and suffering and the endless litany of bedsores and bedpans that accompanies illness, succumbed and died. He had been a wonderful man and an awe-inspring if somewhat terrifying grandfather and I felt his loss, my first death dearly. But one must move on. However the peculiarity of death then began to emerge. After the publication of a death notice, awfully close to an advert for a strip club catering exclusively for insurance brokers I might add, and the realisation that most things in life are for sale, I felt a subtle shift in the universe.

I was almost immediately inundated with phone calls and it all spiraled out of control when the paper published the details of my inheritance, having forgotten temporarily all about privacy laws it seems. I got phone calls from lawyers who wanted to write my will, which I found terribly insensitive in the circumstances, struggling entrepreneurs who wanted funding for vague and impossible ideas, and even a three year old girl who begged me to buy her a puppy. I said no of course. And then, interrupting the chaos, I answered the phone to hear the sweet melodious sound of my first of the insurance brokers. His name was James Dickity-Jones and I sensed an automatic allure calling me to accept his polite invitation to a country picnic after the funeral on Saturday. Oh yes, it appeared that James’s grandfather and mine had been the greatest of friends for decades so I knew I’d be safe.

The Saturday of the funeral was a glorious day in every way. The early September Spring was evident in the air, the light, the blossoms on the trees, the skip in peoples’ steps and the smiles on their faces. Of course, the closer we got to the church, we were all walking as the day was too beautiful too be caged in vehicles, the more downturned expressions became and legs grew heavy as they began to almost shuffle towards the church. The mood began to pall and I looked around hoping to spot my insurance broker, of course I still didn’t know he was an insurance broker at this point.

With the steps of the church in front of me I sighed a huge sigh as melancholy overcame me and I began to lose hope that my insurance broker would arrive at all that day. As I recalled fond memories of my father marrying my mother, his second wife, yes it was some years after my birth, in the same church, I felt a strong hand grasp my elbow. I responded by reflex, stamping my stiletto heel down hard on the foot of my beautiful insurance broker. As I looked into his eyes in the moment of his agony, I knew that this was the insurance broker for me; James was tough.

Although James died only two years later and was put to rest in the very same church as Gramps, I had the best two years of my life with my first insurance broker. Of course, when James died, the phone started ringing again, and tomorrow I’ll be marrying John, my second insurance broker.