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No, Thank You!!! And it works!

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Okay, so now we’ve posted a fresh new edition of our front-door message:

Please be kind enough not to steal this sign

NO SOLICITING, PLEASE

NO PETITIONS, PLEASE

Kindly do not jangle the doorbell.

Occupant is ill and does not wish to yak with you.

Occupant does NOT buy from solicitors.

Astonishingly, I’ve found this little poster actually works to discourage nuisances and idiots from leaning on the doorbell or pounding on the screen door in their efforts to peddle stuff. These days, I hardly get ANY hustlers at the door!

Before I came up with this thing, I’d get at least one pest every two or three days — often one or two a day.

Frankly, I really am amazed that it does work. I seal it inside one of those transparent plastic binder sheet holders. This keeps it dry and seems to protect it pretty well from the ravages of the sun — although it’s in the shade most of the day, anyhow.

LOL! I guess they figure if you’re gonna go to that much trouble to make a sign to shoo them off, you’re not gonna buy anything from them or stand around listening to their political gab. First time I made one of these things, I figured they’d just steal it.

But amazingly, no! Never have had one stolen(!!). And the nuisance doorbell-jangling has fallen to nil. That’s why I know it’s working: we get rafts of those pests.

You do have to put it inside a plastic binder sheet, partly because if they can tear down a piece of paper, they will take that, and partly because the plastic cover nicely protects your sign from rain and blasting sunlight.

Gawd. What a world, eh? Where you have to erect weather-proof signs to keep people from pestering you in your own home!

What’s Your Favorite Phone Solicitor Bounce?

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EVERY….GODDAM…MORNING the accursed phone solicitors ring up this number. Even though I have the telephone set to ring through only on calls from specific area codes, almost every day at least one nuisance call gets through. Usually more than that.

They spoof area codes as well as local exchanges, trying to trick you into picking up the phone. I, for example, no longer answer the phone unless I recognize the caller’s name or the call is coming from an area where a client might be located. But this means,  of course, that if you do any amount of business over the phone, you really can’t afford to decline to answer the call.

Phone soliciting is a prison industry. So a fair number of the dorkuses who roust you as the sun rises are convicts, working some miserable job as part of their sentence. Others are more ordinary scam operators: crooks of one sort or another who have a special skill at putting on the Dumb and the Feckless.

To my mind, that files the whole lot of them into the category of Crook and Nuisance. So I feel no compulsion to be polite to them.

So…if they’re taking advantage of you (they know it’s 7 in the morning where you are, and you’re running around trying to get ready for work, wrangling the kids for school, or choking down breakfast and coffee), why not have a little fun with them?

Videlicet:

Them: Good morning, Ms. Bltzvck. {Pronouncing your name wrong…}

You: Hello, dear. What are you up to?

Them: {Launches into sales pitch.}

You: Is that so?!? That sounds very interesting! How long does it take to get {whatever they’re peddling} here to East Thailand?

*******

Them: Good morning, Ms. Bltzvck. Blah blah bl…

You: Omigawd! EEEEEK!

Them: Huh?

You: HOLEEE SHEEE-UT!  Call the fire department. The kitchen is ON FIRE!!!! 

Them: Where are you?

You: Eeeeeeeek! HAAAAAALP!!!! Ow, ow, ow, nooooooo!!!!! HEEELLLLPPPPPPP!

Them: What’s your address?

You: GAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

SLAMMMM!
(Mark slams down the phone)

****

Them: Good morning, Ms. Bltzvck. This is Dimwit Dummas calling for Ripoff Industries. How are you today?

You: Just fine, dear. And you? Now the Mark engages the predator in conversation. As the exchange proceeds…

You: By the way, may I ask you something?

Them: Sure?

You: I’ve heard telephone soliciting is a prison industry. What jail are you calling from?

And so on, to infinity. 

As if you had that much time to waste…

What’s your own favorite phone-solicitor revenge? Tell us about it in the comments below…please!

The Phone Is Not Your Friend

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The other day I learned something that just dropped my jaw!  Telephone operators, despite any hallucination you may have to the effect that it’s illegal to eavesdrop on you, sit there as they while away the workday hours and listen to customers’ conversations.

Noooo kidding! In the course of a discussion about my service and lack thereof, the phone company’s operator admitted that she knew what I habitually talk about over the phone — naughty or nice — because she had been listening to me.

We’re talking about land lines here… I’ve ever been too lazy to force myself to use the newer technology. But no indication was given to suggest she couldn’t do this with any technology that the phone company manages.

***
CAN you imagine?
***

I was pretty horrified. And I’ll tell you: after this I’ll use the landline phone a WHOLE lot less. Whenever I can force myself to learn the accursed new technology, I’ll get rid of the landline altogether. But believe me: I will NEVER trust that no one else can spy on any phone conversation…not now, nevermore.

Guess this is gonna push me, finally, to learn the current technology. I’ve felt if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And frankly, just have not wanted to be bothered with learning a whole new system of carrying on phone conversations.

That notwithstanding, after all these years of being assured that phone operators were required keep their pretty little noses out of your business, henceforth I will assume that someone, somewhere may very well listening to what I’m saying.

Y’know…I’m sooooo lazy. My problem with the kewl current phone technology is that I tend to feel if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! My phones work and always have worked just as I want them to (well…except for the nuisance calls from the ba*tard phone solicitors). So I’ve felt exactly NO compulsion to get rid of my antique land lines, sign up for fancy new service, and learn how to use a whole new technology.

But I guess I’m gonna hafta.

So… old tech or new tech, do be aware: 

Apparently phone company staff can hear everything you say. If they choose to listen in on you, they surely can. And do.

Soooo…..when you’re yakking on the phone, keep a lid on anything you don’t want someone else to know about…

F’rgodsake, At Least Get the Story Straight!

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The most ludicrous stuff is going on here. 

It’s my fault, because behaviorally I do not hew to the standard  American middle-class way of daily living. I grew up overseas, in a remote oil colony surrounded by a culture best described as “alien” to the American way of doing things. It was like living on another planet, when that planet was inhabited by people who had no grasp of our way of life. And we, conversely, had little grasp of theirs.

The way we Americans did things, in private behind closed doors, was very different from the way the locals did things. They would (and did) regard our ways as downright immoral. But because we lived in a fenced, isolated American community, most of the time we could go about our lives as we pleased, local mores and laws notwithstanding.

Saudis, they were — the locals. In terms of what they viewed as right & wrong, what they regarded as “clean living”: about the closest we would have here are Mormons. 

As  you know if you live in the American Southwest, Mormonism — like Islam — forbids the use of alcohol.

But your average American Jane or Joe — unlike a Moslem, unlike a Mormon — is not really much into teetotaling. Thus, where we lived in Arabia, the isolated camps full of American company employees were populated with folks who were used to a cocktail at dinner and to getting snockered at a party.

Where did those cocktails come from? Generally from a still hidden in or near the American resident’s home. My father brewed his own alcohol for years, and after the Arab workers went home, many a fine party was held in camp, fueled by DIY booze.

Thus I grew up thinking that a cocktail at dinnertime or at party time was a normal part of life. No, we were not getting blitzed every evening after the hired help went back to their own settlements. We  were having a cocktail before dinner, or a couple of swiggles during a party.

Thus it has been all of my adult life. From the time I was 18 years old. All the time I was going through the university, I dated a guy who did the same. After I graduated, we split up but I continued our usual habit with beer or low-rent wine.

The horror, eh?

Well…yeah. Turns out this is not normal behavior for a large slab of Americans. 

Among them is my cleaning lady. She thinks I’m a lush because I have a glass of wine with my mid-day meal — which is my equivalent of dinner: meat, potatoes, veggie, salad. This horror, she has reported to my son, and now he thinks I sit around all afternoon swilling booze.

Yeah, you’re right: if I’d had any sense, I would have refrained from drinking wine or beer in front of her. And so I should have.

My son, having ingested her exaggerated reports, has now passed this “intelligence” along to my doctors!

No kidding! He has told them I sit around every afternoon getting snockered!

And that has created a fine fistful of trouble for me.

In the first place, short of a camera and a replayable video, I have no way of proving to these docs — or to my son — that no, I do not sit around all afternoon getting blitzed.

In the second place, this blossoming squabble means I have two choices by way of keeping the peace:

* Either get rid of ALL the alcohol in the house — all alcohol of any kind, from a bottle of gin to a tiny bottle of vanilla flavoring…

* Or sell the house, move away, and get on with my life unmolested.

Neither of these these options appeals to me. I do not want to change my lifestyle because someone else’s religion or superstition tells me what I do is naughty-naughty.

And I most certainly do not want to move away from my home, my son and my friends.

Absurd, isn’t it?

Morning in Aridzona…

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Brrrrr! It’s mighty cold out there come seven in the morning: just 89 degrees.

In fact, even for lovely uptown Phoenix, that’s hot and muggy. The air is so damp it’s practically squishy.

Ruby and the Human:  just back from circumnavigating the ‘Hood: over to the park, down the street that parallels the south side of the park, past the home (uhm…former home) of the folks who lost everything when their son got arrested for diddling some underage chippy, up the east side of the park: northerly, northerly into Upper Richistan.

Lovely neighborhood, that. The Richistans are occupied by folks who can afford acre-plus irrigated lots, big swell houses, and armies of workmen. Personally, I wouldn’t want to live there: been there, done that, don’t wanna do it again. Riding herd on 87 berjillion yard guys, maintenance guys, repairmen, cleaners…and on and on and on… Blech! Never again!

But still: it’s fun to eyeball other people’s overpriced, high-maintenance properties. 😀

The beloved Old Guy is no longer in evidence. He would hang out in a lawn chair parked on his front driveway, his coffee and his newspaper in hand, and greet all us passers-by. I do miss him.

With any luck, he will have dropped dead of a heart attack. More likely, though, this being Today’s Day & Age, he’s locked up in some old-folkerie, waiting for Death to come and get him.

That seems to be the fate of most of today’s denizens of the middle and upper classes. We don’t die in a timely way. We drag out dying, and drag it out and drag it out and drag it out…horribly, hideously. Parked in a dreary prison for old folks, where we rot away like so much unrefrigerated bacon.

Please, dear God: please, just let me drop dead on the sidewalk!

Y’know, before you croak over or end up in an old-folkerie, you should find out what your grown kids REALLY want you to do with your property.

You assume, quite reasonably in its antiquated way, that they will want to inherit your beloved home and its handsome yard and…all that. But consider: it ain’t necessarily so!

A lot of grown offspring have their own homes. Homes with which they’re quite satisfied. Homes they don’t want to move out of. Foist a $300,000 piece of property on them and now they’re burdened with something they’ve got to figure out what to do with. Something laden with emotional overtones that make them feel guilty when they go to sell the place.

If they can bring themselves to sell it, that is.

Now they’re stuck with it. What ARE they gonna do with it?

I’m pretty sure my son wants this house. But…before much longer, I do need to sit down with him and ask him whether he really does want it, or whether it would be better for me to sell it before I croak over and invest the proceeds in some cash instrument he can inherit and do with as he pleases. With minimal hassle, that is.

Of course, that’s one of those conversations none of us wants to have.

And as you know, we’re likely to put it off and put it off and put it off until…well…it’s too late.

***********

Speaking of selling or not selling the shack…

**********

ONE RINGY- DINGY! TWO RINGY-DINGIES! THREE….

No, I don’t recognize the caller’s number. That means chances are about nine out of ten that this is yet another goddamn nuisance phone solicitor.

Me: “And what would you be wanting?”

Her (after a brief, awkward pause: “Would you be interested in selling your house?”

Me: “GET OFF MY F*CKING PHONE AND STAY OFF MY F*CKING PHONE!!!!!!!!!

Gawd ALMIGHTY am I sick and tired of morons calling me on the phone to hustle me.

It should be illegal to call a phone number unless you have real, certifiable business with the number’s owner.

Heeeeeeee!  What d’you suppose would happen if, when an idiot phone solicitor gets you on the horn, you were to say, “Did you make an appointment to call me”?

Them: Duuuuhhhhh… Uhm…an appointment? 

You: Yeah. you need to have an appointment to call here. What’s your name and what is your appointment number?

{chortle!} Godlmighty, but I hate these people. Wish there was a better way to bug them than by blowing an air horn into the phone.

I wore out my air horn. Guess I should order another one from Amazon.

😀

Bastards.

Did you know that many of those folks — possibly most of them — are calling from inside prisons?

Phone solicitation is a prison industry. A substantial number of the jerks who pester you on the phone are more than jerks: they’re criminals. 

Gettin’ Old…and Stayin’ Free!

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My roommate at the University of Arizona had an aunt in Tucson who allowed herself to be persuaded (by my rm’s mother) to tell the university that we two girls were going to live at her house. (In those days, undergraduate girls were required to live in the dorms, unless they stayed at home.) We promptly moved into our own apartment. And lo! We escaped the Hell that was the University of Arizona’s dormitory system.

Well, that’s about how I see our present-day old-folkeries: as institutions of Hell. I most surely don’t want to live in such a place. NEVER AGAIN! I cherish my aloneness. I love living in my house. And when Ruby barks (corgis surely CAN bark!), she doesn’t bother anyone.  When a neighbor chooses to turn their TV to “blast,” the damn thing is far enough away that the racket doesn’t penetrate my bedroom walls. Or any of my walls!

So…how to stay out of some awful place designed as a prison for the useless elderly?

Back in the Dark Ages, old buzzards often – maybe usually – moved in with an adult child’s family. My great-grandmother, for example, lived with her daughter, whose own son and daughter-in-law lived within walking distance.

That, you may be damn sure, ain’t gonna happen in our time and in our space! 😀

Fastest way possible to drive my poor son nuts!

But…but…waitaminit here!

WHAT IF you didn’t live with the offspring, but rather within walking distance? Or within a few minutes’ drive time?

That would give the adult kid easy, fast access to you – and you access to them.

And…in my case, what would it do for me?

Well, it would put my heroic son within a few minutes’ drive – or even walk. So, he could rescue me from myself, when needed. Conversely, I could easily reach his place, even on foot, making it possible (even easy) to pester the bedoodles outta him. 😉

Seriously: it would make it easy for me to take gifts of food and other treats to him. Easy to haunt him when I have some PITA that needs a grown man to handle. Easy for him to pick me up and schlep me to the dentist (or wherever).

And thereby it would facilitate my living at home as long as possible: preferably until I croak over.

Voilà! I get my privacy and peace & quiet. He gets his mutther where he can keep an eye on the ole’ bat.

Welp…all those bennies are, in fact, a shade on the optimistic side. My son has, of all things, a JOB (remember those?). He works out of his home for a large international insurance company. This, as you might imagine, does keep him busy.

Very busy,

So he can’t be trotting back and forth to my house or chauffeuring me around the city.

Fortunately, the corner of this city where I live happens to be well stocked with conveniences. Within a couple of blocks, we have an Albertson’s (supermarket par excellence), a more or less competent computer store, a Walgreen’s, a T-Mobile, a Bookman’s…. on and on and ON. About 90% of the time, you really don’t need a car to supply your needs here.

Gilding that lily, the swell new lightrail train comes right up into the ‘Hood., northbound from the downtown district. And the city is building extensions that will carry passengers east and west  and, eventually, further north into the middle-class suburbs along the freeway. In another few years, I’ll be able to get out to the university without ever touching an ignition key.

Mercifully, the time for me to need to commute to campus has passed…”mercifully” because no, I do NOT enjoy being groped by fellow passengers on those trains, or hooted and yelled at by jerk drivers as I stand at a bus stop. But if few minor irritants bother you, these trains ARE the Business.

Now…admittedly, there are some benefits to locking yourself into an old-folkerie.  In my father’s case, for example, one day he sat down for a huge mid-day meal in the dining hall and…promptly had a stroke!

Staff members there recognized what was happening and called for help on the spot. MUCH faster than I would have been able to call, even though I was sitting right there beside him. And they knew exactly what they were talking about when they spoke with the operator. Help arrived within minutes…and it was help who knew what to expect and how to address the disaster under way.

That wouldn’t happen if I had a stroke as I was sitting at my dining room table here at the Funny Farm. Of that you may be sure.

Someone would discover my corpse a few days later – maybe. Probably gnawed on by a hungry hound.

At any rate: just now one option is, in fact, for me to stay right where I am.

Another would be for me to move closer to where my son is.

His place is within walking distance of the beloved AJ’s Overpriced Gourmet Market, a few steps from the lightrail, minutes from two major regional hospitals. So…if I lived near him, I really wouldn’t need a car at all. I could use taxicabs if there were some reason not to walk, and in a real emergency, an ambulance would arrive within seconds.

Heh heh! JUST what my son needs, right? For his muther to move in three houses up the road! 😀

Ohhhhh well… It’s something to think about. If not to laugh about.