How Can You Miss Me If I Won't Go Away?

To be quite honest (which is a stretch for a recovering attorney) there are times when I wonder whether surviving melanoma this long has been a wise move and I feel like a semi-useful burden. I seem to be unemployable in any position with a decent salary and health insurance coverage, and I’m overqualified to be a WalMart greeter. Self-employed, I’m uninsurable. My current health insurer would prefer I just went away so they don’t have to pay for any more periodic checkups and monitoring scans. According to the talking head pundits on cable news, if I live long enough to be eligible for Social Security and Medicare then I’ll contribute to the looming federal deficit crisis and burden the next generations of taxpayers. My retirement savings have taken a serious whacking in a deep economic recession caused by boneheaded decisions of politicians, regulators, and CEOs, so my wife could really use the proceeds of my life insurance policies. And my anatomy is speckled with hail dents, some visible and some not, which affect my quality of life and daily activities-- including my golf swing, dang it!

I need to stop whining and borrow a firearm and go blast some holes in a discarded refrigerator, but instead I’ve put my current state of mental funk to song, to the tune of “How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away” from Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks…



I've seen all my doctors and I've passed all my scans
They say they've searched, but it's all in vain
You’ve begged and you’ve pleaded
You even got mad
Now we must face it, I give you a pain

How can you miss me when I won't go away?
Keep telling me day after day
But I won't listen, I always stay and stay
How can you miss me when I won't go away?

My never ending presence really cramps your style
You dream that it won't always be the same
At first you were accepting, but after a while
Have I ever heard of the soon-to-die game?

How can you miss me when I won't go away?
You keep telling me day after day
But I won't listen, I always stay and stay
How can you miss me when I won't go away?
And you mean it, too!

Out of 10 thousand patients, why must it be me?
Oh why, oh why won't I succumb soon?
Just do you a favor and listen to your plea
I'm just one more boomer in the brood!

How can you miss me when I won't go away?
You keep telling me day after day
But I won't listen, I always stay and stay
How can you miss me when I won't go away?

Screw the pundits, I won’t back down to melanoma anytime soon so just live with it!