{"id":16116,"date":"2011-05-08T10:45:15","date_gmt":"2011-05-08T14:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=16116"},"modified":"2015-12-27T15:46:38","modified_gmt":"2015-12-27T20:46:38","slug":"insulin-pump-or-pager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=16116","title":{"rendered":"Insulin Pump or Pager?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
This is not a pager, either.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So I’m walking down the street from the bus stop, and I stop at an intersection to wait for the light to change. It’s a pretty large road, and in the right-hand lane a car pulls up. An SUV of some sort, driven by a young man with his windows open and a laughing woman in the passenger seat, bare feet up on the dashboard.<\/p>\n

The man looks over at me– “Hey,” he yells, “Whuz that, a pager?” indicating the insulin pump on the waistband of my jeans.<\/p>\n

“No,” I yelled back into his car, “it’s an insulin pump– I’m a diabetic.”<\/p>\n

Suddenly, he is taken aback, abashed. “Oh, dude, I’m sorry– I didn’t know!”<\/p>\n

And I laughed. Really? In what world is it perfectly acceptable to yell at someone out of your car, but, not recognizing an obscure medical device that only 15% of 1% of Americans have? Now that’s just rude<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The light changed, and I continued across the street, my day made.<\/p>\n

“There are no exact guidelines. There are probably no guidelines at all. The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance. Awareness of all the most dangerous kinds of vanity, both in others and in ourselves. A good mind. A modest certainty about the meaning of things. Gratitude for the gift of life and the courage to take responsibility for it. Vigilance of spirit.” – Czech President Vaclav Havel, addressing far more serious things than I am (June 24, 1999 Open Society Prize acceptance speech<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Happy Mother’s Day, all you mothers– and many thanks to my mother for imparting to me a healthy sense of irony and an appreciation for the absurd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":53098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1501],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nInsulin Pump or Pager?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The man looks over at me-- "Hey," he yells, "Whuz that, a pager?" 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