I HATE SCAMS AND SCAMMERS!!!!

I HATE SCAMS AND SCAMMERS!  Did I say that loud enough?  I have done everything I can to stop these annoying calls.  I have signed up on the “Do Not Call” list more than once.  I have tried the “Stop the Robo” caller program…that has not stopped them.  I have ignored the calls with numbers I don’t recognize, but the annoyance of the consistent ringing drive me crazy. I began to take the call making sure it was indeed a non-legitimate caller then I would block the number.  In 3 days…yes, that is 3 days I filled my allotted number of calls I am allowed to block in my phone system.  One would think that having caller ID would help stop them, but they have even managed to get around identifying who they are with that.  Often when I have called the number back, I get that the number has been disconnected.  How can that be?  That number just rang my phone!!!

Over the years I have taken down all their information and then called my local government office…only to be told not to answer the call.  Then I called my local consumer advocate…only to be told to just hang up.  Once when I was so tied up caring for my dying husband, I called the police to see if I could get the Bucks County Police Association to stop calling and they told me,  “There was nothing they could do, and by the way, do not donate to them,” he said, “we get nothing from them.”  Great.

Why is it so hard to figure out what to do to stop them.  In one of my evil moments, I wished I had one of those loud piercing sound makers to blow into the phone once a real person gets online.  I figure if I take away their hearing they would give up calling!

Once I even gave them a bunch of phony information just to get rid of them. I told the foreign sounding voice on the other end of the line that my name was  Dumbia Scammershit.  

I have resorted to pretending I was deaf.  “Hello!”  They would try and say something, and I would interrupt with “Hello…are you there?”  “What?”  “Speak louder I cannot hear you.”  Eventually, with me screaming on the phone, they would hang up.

Another time when the caller would ask their question, I would answer with gibberish, making no sense and having nothing to do with their question.  They would eventually hang up also.

Once I startled a person with, “I am so glad you called.  You need to call the police.  I think I just killed an intruder who came into my house.  He looks familiar…similar to my husband,” I said…eventually they hung up too.

The scariest call I ever had was years ago when my husband left for his second shift job, I got a call asking if I was Mrs. Ford.  He then identified himself (this was before caller ID) as the State Police and that my husband was just involved in an auto accident and could I call someone over to my home while I head to the hospital.  Something told me to call the State Police to confirm the event, and that is when I found out that this was a scam call and the police would never call with that kind of information.  They would send an officer in person.  

Remember years ago when Olean Mills would call and offer up a free 8x10 family photo just for letting them send a photographer to the home to snap the series of photos to choose from?  We all knew the scam.  Take the photos then do a high-pressure pitch to get you to buy a very expensive package.  As a mother of four young children, I did not have the time for such nonsense.  I said no.  Then no again.  And no one more time.  After a bit, the caller asked, “Why Mrs. Ford would you not want a beautiful family photo to cherish the rest of your life?”  After a bit of a pause, I responded in a very serious tone with, “Because sir, you just don’t understand.  My children are so ugly I never take their pictures.  People would just laugh and stare.”  The dead silence at the other end of the phone told me all I needed to know and the calls stopped.

Lately, the “IRS” scammer calls and the “PECO” scammer calls are ringing me two to three times a day.  I let them know they are a scammer and for the most part, the IRS people just hang up.  But the PECO scammers have actually started arguing with me.  Today when they called, I asked them how they could live with themselves scamming people out of their hard-earned money and hung up.  Not that they care but I was hoping the “Mother’s Voice” I shot out there would get to them.  

I am not naive to think anyone could talk to these lowlife-scumbag-bastards into caring. I have decided that it is time to make a daily political call to plead with my congressmen to come up with a way to stop this.  Elderly people especially are so vulnerable to this kind of crap and sadly too many times are scammed out of their money, and it is sad that there is nothing that can be done about it.  

If any of you out there have any ideas, I am open to hearing them.  

“HELLO, WHAT DID YOU SAY?”  “I CAN’T HEAR YOU…SPEAK LOUDER PLEASE.”  “HELLO!”  “ARE YOU THERE?”

Oh I am sorry, I am practicing for my next scammer call.  

GIVE BACK MY COUNTRY?

Life is messy.  It has always been messy.  But being messy is not bad.  It means we spend a lifetime of accepting the change that occurs…always, hopefully, trying to make it better than it was.  So this begs the question, what does it mean when I hear someone say they want their country back.  I wonder, back from who?  Back from what? 

The phrase, “give me the good ole days”, always sets me off.  For me, these are the good days…not the 40’s, 50’s 60’s….not even for a second.

I remember those days as everyone having a place in society and severe consequences if you broke society rules or was not born the right color or in the right place.  If you are a white man, who had money in his pocket, you do miss those days.  But for everyone else, life was a struggle.  Women who were being beaten in their marriage, kept it quiet and hidden because the choice was to be out on the street without any support system to help them get back on their feet.  

A woman pregnant out of wedlock?  You had hell to pay.  Often sent out of town for the duration of the pregnancy or get married immediately, even while in high school.  Forever branded, few had second chances at life.

Sexual abuse as a child?  Hide it.  Don’t raise a fuss.  After all, if you did tell, it was often the victim who suffered the consequences of the reveal.  Few times did the perpetrator ever get punished.

Women who had a “reputation” were in the end shunned and scorned.  But the men who played this game were treated as heroes in the conquest game.

Married outside of your faith?  You would often be thrown out of the family for such disrespect.

Were you gay?  Who knew?  Gay men and women were buried so deep in the closet they could hardly be found.  Overhearing a conversation a while back, I heard, “I didn’t realize there were so many gays.”  

Marry a person of a different color?  Forget it, you were often driven to live in the big cities where at least you had a chance to live without harm. Have children? They were the ones who suffered the name calling and bullying.  Acceptance in our society was difficult at best!

Life has always provided opportunities to challenge what we believe.  The moral choices that we made today can seem a no-brainer, but at the time, it was painful and a struggle to accept the changes it brought.  

I remember the 60’s and early 70’s when our country was in a state of upheaval and we all wondered where it would all end…would we survive…would there ever be peace again?  Free love and drugs would prove to have consequences…eventually we learned.  We grew up.  

I am glad to have been born in the United States of America where we have struggled since we accepted the Bill of Rights and our Constitution, to honor “where all men are created equal”.  It is not always easy.  Fear makes us do strange things.  Hard choices make us want to retreat into what is familiar.  Strangers can sometimes scare us until we stop and get to know each other… man to man…woman to woman…child to child and recognize in others that which is in ourselves.  

I don’t buy the cry, “Give back my country.”  We have it now.  This moment.  And it is our responsibility to always carry the torch where all men are created equal so we can live in a world where all are treated equal and with respect.

You can have yesterday if you want it…but give me today.  I am happier here in the now!

FATTY FATTY TWO BY FOUR...

There is nothing funny about Comedian Nicole Arbour.  She is getting a lot of attention these days for her “Fat Shaming” video by those who have the courage to produce their own video fighting back.  The truth is, fat shaming is not just what Nicole Arbour does, it is what many do.  I believe it is the accepted form of bullying.  When is the last time you heard anyone say to someone who makes fat crude jokes, that they should not.  I haven’t.  I would be interested to hear if you have.

I am going to lay it out there…I have never been thin.  NEVER!  In 5th grade, my report card shows that I was 1/2 inch off my adult height and weighed 155 pounds.  A weight I carried right up to my first pregnancy when I was 23 years old.  Each of my four pregnancies added some weight (reaching 175 lbs) until I became the long-term caretaker of my dying husband in which I gained my most weight…a weight I carry today.  No excuses…it’s just what happened.  I have been on many diets over my life time.  I would initially lose weight but eventually it came back to where I started.

Carrying weight above what society says should be, has taken its toll on my self-esteem and emotional well-being.  Starting in those elementary years right up through today, I can honestly say not a day passes that I don’t experience something by someone that lets me know I am fat.  

In my 8th grade class from Gavin Grade School, we had a tradition of signing autograph books as our class graduated elementary school heading off to high school.  Some of the boys in my class filled my book with poems reading, “Fatty, fatty, two by four, can’t get through the kitchen door….” sending me out with a life time of insecurities and self conscience and negative attitudes towards myself.  And in my case, this treatment was only the frosting on a cake that was already soured by a complicated childhood.  

I never had a safe place from “fat comments.”  Over the years, conversations with long distance relatives would often include a question, “lose any weight lately?”  It would sting, but I would brush it off the best I could.

Look, I get how weight can be a detriment towards good health, but at the same time I also recognize that sometimes weight is caused by more than poor choices.  My daughter suffers from Polycystic ovary syndrome, which showed up while she was in college.  One noticeable symptom of POS is weight gain.  It is heartbreaking to watch how differently someone you love is treated just because they carry more weight than what is “acceptable” by society standards.  

Yes, bullying comes in many forms.  And the video that Nicole Arbour produced is a form of bullying.  In a society where we celebrate those who call people who disagree with them “losers” and name call anyone different than themselves, I don’t know how to expect anything different.  I am filled with sadness when I see how we tolerate being cruel to one another.  I cannot change the world, but I can choose to be kind and accepting to those around me, no matter how different they are as compared to me.  

9/8/2015