Coffee heat rising

Scams & crooks

Nothin’ Better to Do….

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Jeez. Can you imagine? The locals have got nothin’ better to do than to sneak onto my front porch and steal my bird feeders!  They did it again this afternoon.

What bastards!

Welp: after this, the birds will have to repair to the back yard — behind locked, six-foot-high gates — to snack on their birdseed and their hummingbird juice.  Guess I could booby-trap the front patio with cameras…but really…. That does seem like it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

Literally: even if I catch them in the act, the cops aren’t likely to do much (or anything) about it. Like there weren’t better things to fill a police officer’s time?

It’s stupid and it’s petty. But it sure pisses me off!

Never a Dull Moment

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Every time you turn around, here’s some new shenanigan or headache to contend with. It’s getting old…very old…

This morning, in comes an email from a co-religionist down at the church. She and I used to work the front desk in the office, among other things. Soo…I go to answer this message and find it’s FAKE. It’s a spamming, scamming message sent under her name and email address.

Jeez. Don’t you know the mere act of opening that message has now invited that scammer to exploit and hassle me.

Goodie! I can hardly wait.

Just one more thing to pile atop the Handcart to Hell. 

  • My son is ill and pretty much on the outs.
  • I ain’t what you’d call “well,” either.
  • The pool appears to need some (expensive!) work
  • The park is infested with coyotes, so I can’t take Ruby the Corgi over there safely. That park is her favorite doggy-walk venue.
  • The peripheral neuropathy I’ve been enjoying, as it develops, can be a sign of a very serious ailment.
  • And on…and on…and on…

Part of the trouble here is that I’m now sick enough myself that I can’t handle all the stupid little ditz of daily life. And as you my recognize, most of this stuff is the ditz of daily life. One fukkin’ thing after another!

Garbage of that ilk, of course, flows in a steady stream. There’s never any end to it.

But gosh! I’m tired of it!!

Ruminations on Ruination

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Egad! Get up and close that damn back door…NOW!

Seriously: the Dawg and the Human just sat down to take in the morning slack — coffee mug in hand, computer atop lap — and it dawns on the Human: Do not sit there with the back door hanging open, dammit!!!  Nay verily, not even if the screen door is closed and locked.

‘Cause, as we know, any clown and his/her little brother can kick or yank that screen open.

Sounds paranoid, eh? But I do hafta say: it feels more and more unsafe to me, living here in lovely Arizona. Especially in its (un)lovely cities.

Day or two ago, a Tucson woman was murdered at her home, apparently by a nut case. So…sitting around your house or patio taking in the morning air is decidedly NOT advised. Surely not around here.

So many of our fellow citizens are off the rails here in this crazy-making 21st Century — and it’s so easy for them (and us) to stock up on firearms — that really: You’d be nuts to loaf in your family room with the back door hanging open.

I never used to feel especially unsafe in my home, certainly not in the daylight hours. But lately that has changed…and I don’t think the change is a function of age.

No. It’s a function of the steadily growing insanity and violence around us. Not that humans haven’t always been crazy…but really, it does seem a lot more pronounced than it was, say, 20 or 30 years ago.

Sometimes I think I should move out of uptown Phoenix — surely the suburbs would be safer. When I mentioned that to a cop during the great home invasion adventure, he remarked that there aren’t any places in the Phoenix metropolitan area that can be regarded as safe.

Really…when you re-read the post I put up at Funny after that little adventure, you hafta ask yourself: Why am I still living here???

What the HELL is the matter with me that I haven’t moved somewhere else? Somewhere far, far from here! Really: this house should have been on the market the next day after that episode…

But…but…WHERE would I go that’s any better?

Sun City, that fine mausoleum on the west side? 

Well, no: this kind of stuff happens out there. My mother lived in white-lipped terror all the time she and my father owned their Sun City manse. And I’m not interested in living in a ghetto for the aged and the cranky. No, thanks.

A box in the sky? One of the high-rise apartments along Central Avenue or in Scottsdale?

Well…I’ve lived in such a place. And…no thanks. Don’t wanna do that again. I’m just not in to communal living.

No communal living, eh? Well, then: how about back out to the ranch, just outside the wide spot in the road called Yarnell? Right up on the Rim…cool weather, lots of cows and sheep, plenty of room for the burglars to spread out comfortably?

Hm. Yeah, I did love the ranch. BUT: we didn’t live there 24/7. It was more of a weekend retreat for us. And y’know: I don’t think I would want to live out in the middle of nowhere 24/7. Besides, if a burglar/rapist/murderer can visit you in your city subdivision, what’s to keep him from visiting you on your remote ranch?

Basically…where there be humans, you be not safe.

Yeah: I’m afraid that’s a fact.

Or, alternatively:  I’m afraid. That’s a fact.

😀

 

 

Egad! Who’d’ve Thunk it?

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Woo HOOO!  I’m IN!!

Yeah: Seriously, I thought there was NO WAY I could get back into Funny about Money, not without hauling the laptop over to the computer guys and begging them to fix it.

But mysteriously: here we are! 

At least I think so… We’ll find out when we try t…JANGLE JANGLE JANGLE!!!!!

Another goddamn nuisance phone call! From area code 160

Where the Hell is 160???

WTF: INDIA?

DAMN these pests.

Honest to Gawd! Sometimes (more and more oftentimes…) I think it’s not worth it to have a phone. Certainly not a land line.

Y’know, a cell phone that you can leave in your car so you don’t hear it when every moron and scam artist on the planet jangles you up?  Ohh-kayyyy…. But these days, a land line is just too much of a hub of scams to make it worth paying for the thing.

Especially when you’re ailing. Like now. It’s…

HURT HURT HURT HURT HURT HURT HURT….

Ohhh gawd,, do I hurt! 

My right hip is mightily spavined, And it’s not getting better. Every day is the same as the last: nonstop hurting. Can barely dodder around the house.

So…dammit! If it doesn’t get better within the next week, it’s BACK out to the accursed Mayo Clinic: there, presumably to sign up for surgery on the damn thing. Just what I need to make life perfect!

Huh! India: area code 160. 😀  By now, wouldn’tcha think I’d have enough sense not to pick up the phone for a caller whose number I don’t recognize?

Just too much a creature of the 1950s, I guess.

Really, I do need to come into the 21st Century!  I haven’t…because I haven’t wanted to. Too much hassle, too many headaches, too little return on investment in hassle. But…pretty soon I’m gonna hafta.

Dammit.

 

GGRRRRRR!!!!!

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SEVEN-FORTY FIVE IN THE MORNING and here’s some phone soliciting a$$hole on the phone to pester me!

Jayzuz!

Arizona doesn’t do Daylight Savings Time, so these clowns are probably calling from what seems like an early but marginally OK time for them. For me, there is NO time that’s OK to pester me with a nuisance call — marginal or not.

Really: telephone soliciting should be illegal. 

A perp should get 30 years in jail for rousting some poor victim on the G.D. phone. Add another five years for every minute they call before 10 a.m.

Phone soliciting is a prison industry. So a lot of these clowns are calling you from inside a jail (where they belong, presumably).

And that brings us around to the question of WHAT THE HELL do the state and federal authorities think they’re doing to sic their criminal charges on us? In our homes! At all hours of the day and half the hours of the night!

The proprietors of these operations also belong in jail, alongside their (presumably unpaid or underpaid) charges. Damn them all!!!!!

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!