“Oh come on mom, don’t bring up that birth shit again. Nine months my ass,” said Edward Crosby-Johnson.
Photo by: Hannah Rosenblatt
Charles Crosby and Abigail Johnson, parents of young urban professional Edward Crosby-Johnson, received their third late billing notice from Bethesda Naval Hospital on Thursday. Their inability to cover their medical expenses was coupled with the inability to convince their son to “come on, help out a bit.”
Chronic back pain has followed Mr. Crosby out of the jungles of South Vietnam, manifesting itself as a herniated disc almost 40 years later. This has kept the combat veteran temporarily away from his veterinary office, leaving Mrs. Johnson’s meager take-home salary as an ESL teacher as their only source of income. Without health insurance, the elderly educator and the veteran veterinarian have found themselves with too many bills to pin on their refrigerator.
“Honey, it’s the magnets! They’re the limiting factor,” Crosby mused.
“It wasn’t cheap to put Eddy through Devon Prep Academy, and it certainly wasn’t cheaper to put him through Wharton,” said Johnson. “We don’t have a lot of cash on hand right now, and we’ve been trying so hard to finish paying off those student loans that we couldn’t save for situations like this. I don’t know how else we’d get the $100,000 to pay the bills for the operations besides asking Eddy.”
Crosby-Johnson is a senior account manager at Shoreline Investments, where he earns $450,000 a year. In addition, he can earn a 10% potential yearly bonus, which he “pretty much always gets” due to “being pretty good at his job.”
“So yeah I max out my 401k, if you know what I mean,” he said, winking.
Crosby and Johnson had been desperately hoping that their son could “give back to the family for once” and “lay off the escort services for a bit.”
In response to his parents’ bruised prides and cries for help, Crosby-Johnson has reportedly stated on multiple occasions including at the dinner table and right after church that “people should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”
“I did it, I’m financially independent,” claimed Crosby-Johnson. “And besides, doesn’t Obamacare cover you until I’m 26?”
Feeling more and more pressure from his parents, Crosby-Johnson turned to his younger brother Nedward “Ned” Johnson-Crosby. Crosby-Johnson made efforts to persuade his brother to help out in his stead, allegedly using such tried and true statements as “you always like helping Mom around the house,” and “come on little bro, just this once?”
Johnson-Crosby, who took his mother’s name first to distinct himself from the growing Crosby-Johnson Trust brand, gently reminded his older brother that he was stationed overseas, protecting American assets in the Caribbean.
“Well, my money’s also stationed overseas in the Caymans! This isn’t easy for me either you know,” Crosby-Johnson retorted.
This exchange left Crosby, Johnson, Crosby-Johnson, and Johnson-Crosby in what experts agreed was a “crunchy financial pickle.”
At press time, Crosby-Johnson was seen having a change of heart, as he began to consider the financial burden of arranging his father’s funeral separately from his mother’s.
Crosby-Johnson eventually conceded, “I guess I can mail them a fiver,” while pulling five one-dollar bills out of his Velcro wallet. “But they better not expect me to use a Forever Stamp.”
Barak Tzori is an MQ Alum and was Editor-in-Chief for the 2016-17 school year.
