I admit it.  There are times when I, like anyone else, just want to curl up in a tight little ball, suck my thumb, and wait for Batman to come and rescue me.

But I don't know if even the Caped Crusader - let alone Robin, whose outfit always makes me a little uncomfortable - can help me now.  Because there is one thing - and ONLY one thing - that Gotham City's Champion can never hope to defeat:

The legislative process.

We just passed a healthcare bill.  About half my friends think that this is a sign that God does indeed exist, and loves us all.  The other half are buried deep in hidden bunkers under the Iron Mountain awaiting the Apocalypse (though they still have DSL there, so they will be able to read this... Hi, paranoid friends!).

Me, I am on the undecided list.  Because to be frank, I can't make heads or tails out of what the heck the legislature is doing nowadays.  So it turns into this:

Me: Help me, Batman! [writer's note: Yes, I know I should pray for help, but I have prayed, and I ALSO know that sometimes God answers our prayers by sending us help in the form of another person.  So as long as He's sending personified help, I want it to be Batman.  Case closed.]

[great crashing noise as Batman enters, Stage Up, through the big glass ceiling that is conveniently there for kickin' appearances like this one]

Batman: what can I do, oh fetal one?

Me: Help me understand what the legislative process has lead us to!  Help me understand the Healthcare bill!

Batman: [unperturbed]  Well, it's like this, some people will get healthcare, but, uh, not for a few years, and, um, they, like can also opt-out... I think... or maybe... did I hear that on Fox or on MSNBC?... anyway, so there are a bunch of things that happen in a few months, like, uh... and then... well...

[Zam!  Pow!  Zowee!  Batman kicks me and then drops an ampule of Smoke For Disappearing In and when the smoke (which I discover smells like Bat Pee) dissipates, Batman is gone]

Me: What do I do now?  Where can I go for help?  Save me, Superman!

The rest is just too sad to repeat.

You get the gist though, right?  I mean I don't know hardly ANYONE who really knows what is in this humongous Healthcare Bill we just passed.  And by "we" I mean our elected officials.  And by "our elected officials" I mean those guys in D.C. whom I neither fully trust or totally understand but who I suspect are probably either aliens or some kind of fungus-related material in expensive suits.

So it's hard for me to get into a really heated argument over the thing, because I just don't understand it.  Although I HAVE discovered that if I point out the irony that one of President G.W. Bush's biggest domestic priorities was an attempt to overhaul the healthcare system, and that by making it one of HIS priorities, it would seem that President Obama is at least implicitly recognizing that President Bush was right about something (eek! arg!), I can get in a fight lickety-split.*

At any rate, I guess the one thing I DO understand is that something is going to change at some point, in some way that may or may not substantively affect me.

I find this fact oddly comforting.  Which says a lot about me, I suppose.

But wait!  What's that I hear?  There are challenges to the Constitutionality of the Healthcare Bill?  So perhaps it will go to court and never actually go into effect?  Surely that won't -

What?  There's more?  Even though the bill passed, they're still working on it?  What the heck?  How does THAT work?  Does Congress have a time machine that allows it to go back in time to BEFORE the bill was passed, so that they can make changes to the bill AFTER it was passed, but they really happened BEFORE it passed, and also one of the Congressmen traveled too far back in time and accidentally married his own MOTHER, thus fathering himself?  It's a paradox of epic proportions, and if someone doesn't see another sequel to Back to the Future somewhere in there, my faith in humanity is going to be seriously challenged.

And you know what else is seriously challenging?  Getting someone - anyone - to explain in a cogent and complete manner what the heck the Healthcare Bill does and HOW IT WILL AFFECT ME.  Not to sound too egotistical, but if I can't even understand what something does to ME, how am I going to explain it to someone else?  Let alone being able to invent a time machine that doesn't allow fungus (no Congresspeople allowed) so that I can go back in time and correct the hideous mistakes of my past... like those baggy MC Hammer style workout pants I wore in the early 90s.  Or the fact that I accidentally strangled that guy who made fun of my workout pants using some of the excess baggy cloth of the very pants he had just made fun of.  Whew, now THAT was a weird day.

So for anyone out there who may be listening, could I get an explanation?  Not a sound bite; not an argument for or against; not a euphemism involving dwarves, rubber bands, and a tuning fork; but an actual (preferably consise) explanation?

I'm just lost.

Save me, Green Lantern!

* Lickety-split is faster than "in a jiffy" and only slightly slower than "quick like a bunny."