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May Day! May Day! It sounds a lot like Chicken Little saying that the sky is falling. Although the sky would fall if it could, as it happens to not be a big admirer of gravity, such a thing probably won’t happen in our lifetimes. So what’s all the commotion about?

Stephen P. Positive, a Polyannish California Health Insurance agent, had heard about May Day from several of his clients who had purchased policies. He was an honest guy, like virtually all California Health Insurance agents, just trying to make a living. Plus, his customers noted that he possessed a cheerful countenance within his “attitude of gratitude.”

One client who had a large family spoke of May Days past in the context of dancing around a Maypole, and celebrating the labor movement, but he was a liberal, and they were nearly extinct, weren’t they?

Mostly what Stephen got from his clients when they spoke about May Day were emergencies, most of them garden-variety in the larger scheme of things, certainly relative to a falling sky, which would indeed be a serious matter, Stephen mused, but most emergencies are just so important to someone when they are actually happening, even a kid falling off a swing, or grandpa forgetting to take his medication. So when he heard a litany of Maydays over the phone, every single day, they began to run together, which was human nature for Stephen, and you couldn’t really blame him.

It happened one day. Who would have thunk it? The client who was a liberal, his wife called Stephen, and she was frantic. “It’s my husband; he was dancing around the Maypole and …”

Stephen assured her that her husband was indeed covered, that their policy was in good standing, and he even calmly told her what to do next, about 911, and what to do with the Maypole, and not to shout “May Day! May Day!” over the phone when she called the emergency operator, acting Willy Nilly, as if she were Chicken Little.

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