Part of my job involves doing presentations to seniors about our insurance program at low-income housing complexes. My co-worker brings a home-cooked meal and while the seniors eat, I stand up and talk about the plan.

Sounds boring? Yeah, it sort of is. First I was nervous. Now, I'm becoming bored, trying to find ways to keep it fresh.

When I look at it that way, I guess I should thank God for people like John.

Most of the elderly we meet are sharp, well-acquainted with the wide variety of Medicare plans from which they can choose and capable of though sometimes forgetful, hard of hearing, or sight impaired, logical.

This was not the case today.

This building near downtown Denver houses some of the poorest and most uneducated of the elderly population. They are, for the most part, warm hearted souls in need of a hand up. But this population also is rife with mental illness.

I sat down with one gentleman with braided black-and-gray hair and wide, brown eyes who seemed anxious to speak with me. He immediately told me he did not want to change doctors; because his doctor isn't part of our network, I told him he could not sign up with us, but to stay where he felt he was getting the best care. He nodded appreciably and I stood to leave. But John was not done with me.

"The Lord sent us this storm today," he said. "He's trying to tell us something, you know? A lot of these people here, they want answers. And we'll get the answers someday. We all know that. But they want answers now. All this war, killing people, this storm, he's trying to tell us something. We gotta take care of one another, you know, sister?"

Since I agreed with him wholeheartedly on his last statement, I nodded enthusiastically. This was a bad idea. John was encouraged.

"All these people - Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, Elvis - all these great people died. Why?" Frankly, I've never understood the whole Elvis thing. I wanted to tell John that, the way I saw it, Elvis was just a horndog with the ability to swivel his hips and pout, but I suspected John would not react well to it. "We want answers," he told me.

The answer was that Elvis was a constipated drug addict, I thought.

John rambled, quoting Scripture, repeating many of the things he'd already told me. I smiled, nodded and tried to find a kind way to escape. There was none. Finally, I glanced at my watch, looked surprised and said I was overdue to give my talk.

One minute into it, after I mentioned a care manager who could answer almost any question, John raised his hand. "Can they tell us why Marilyn Monroe killed herself before the government could?"

"They may have a theory but I doubt they can answer that one," I said with a smile.

John's hand rose again. I ignored it. He ignored me.

"Can they tell us why Jesus was whipped and tortured and died on the cross for our sins?"

John had just gotten on my last nerve. Fearing another bizarre interruption, I cut the presentation short.

"Who wants to talk with me one-on-one?"

Several people, including John, raised their hands. I went straight to the wheelchair-bound woman in front of me. She was wheelchair bound, a Medicare recipient who was too young to have qualified for turning 65.

She pushed the wheels on her chair to move closer to me, then stopped, her entire body shaking. She looked at me with discouraged, frightened, resigned eyes and whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The doctors are trying to keep me home."

She pushed back her sleeve to reveal a hospital wristband. "I just got home last night. I'm so depressed."

I rubbed her back, murmuring that I understood, that she should stay strong. My words sounded incredibly trite, yet I could think of nothing more original to say. She stopped shaking.

"But I'd like to talk with you about this plan. Just not here."

Tremors overtook her again.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw John. He flung a leg over the bench nearest us and gazed at Margaret. He grinned widely.

"You doing the spirit walk, sister? That's what happened to me when the Lord came into me. I shook like crazy! Sister, that's wonderful!"

Margaret rolled her eyes so that only I could see. I almost grinned at this small display of spunk.

Margaret and I agreed to meet next week in the privacy of her apartment, far from John.

"Anybody else want to schedule an appointment with me?"

Three women raised their hands. So did John. "To talk about Evercare?" I added. His hand dropped.

Twenty minutes and three scheduled appointments later, I headed for the door.

John called out from behind me. "You married?"

Without thinking, I told him the truth.

"OK. I've got your number if I have any questions," he said, holding up my business card. "So your boyfriend won't get mad if I call then?"

My heart sank. I pretended not to hear him. Instead, I stepped outside into one of the worst blizzards in Denver's history. It felt absolutely wonderful.