Get your rapture insurance now.

Angel Glacier, Mt. Edith Cavell.  Indian Paint Brush on Mt. Edith Cavell

Do you have a love/hate relationship with insurance policies and schemes? Do you sleep better knowing that if your house burns down, you won’t be left destitute like those poor folks in the TV news who--when they sob into the camera that they’ve lost everything--actually mean it? Are you bothered by the amount of money this assurance (insurance really is the wrong word) is costing you?

Some insurance is mandatory, some is optional. You can’t get a mortgage or drive your car without insurance, for instance, but additional health insurance, life insurance, travel insurance, etc. are optional. What optional insurance have you chosen to help you sleep soundly? I’ll bet there’s one out there that you haven’t even considered, and I almost hesitate to name it lest it give you new, unnecessary worries.

I think the entrepreneur who dreamed up this scheme called it Rapture Insurance. Here’s the pitch: If you believe that a time is coming when all born-again Christians will be caught up in the air at once to meet Jesus and all the rest will be “left behind,” you may not have considered what will happen to your faithful Corgi after the joyous event. Are you willing to risk his being locked in a house with no remaining human presence to turn the doorknob to let him out, feed him or take him for walks in the park? If this worries you, Rapture Insurance will guarantee for one decade from the date of sign-on that they will look after the needs of your pet should you be caught up in the rapture and your tank of fishes, your budgie or your cat be left behind. All it will cost you is eleven bucks a year.

In case you saw a flaw in this plan, namely that the insurer might also be “caught up” with you, the company guarantees that all their personnel are atheists and the chance that they would be included in the rapture are nil. Some people believe that their pets are definitely coming with them, and therefore have no need of this insurance. Then there are those who are Christians, but have an alternative view of how the end times will unfold, and their version sees no need for this insurance. But there are some takers for whom this additional piece of peace of mind fits right in.

I gathered all this information via an interview on CBC as I was driving to visit my sister in the nursing home yesterday.

To some of you out there, this story might suggest other entrepreneurial schemes by which you, too, could get rich preying on the fears of a segment of the public. How about my scheme: Slip of the Tongue insurance. Who knows when you might inadvertently say something stupid or hurtful, thereby damaging your reputation, a friendship or costing you your job. Should the occasion arise, my company guarantees to put a very persuasive announcement in the paper assuring all and sundry that you didn’t mean it. Premiums are affordable at fifty dollars a year; there will be a small deductible, of course. No preacher, teacher, doctor, husband, wife or salesman should be without Slip of the Tongue insurance.

It’s not a high price to pay for peace of mind; a slip of the tongue could ruin you.