I was up and agitated in the middle of the night. It finally dawned on me why I was targeted by my tech support company for a scam. I had been using this company for two years. They offered me deals: lifetime services for a lump sum. I am a big pay-for-everything-ahead, never be in debt. Doing that meant that our exchange was one way from then on: I would get the service, and they would not get more money out of me. Risking losing me as a client was a no-brainer. I was angry at myself for being sucked in, mainly because something about the setup sounded fishy from the beginning.
Since this debacle, I have easily discovered a local company from which I can get my tech support. I really didn’t understand what I had to do. I did ask Damon what he did; his company served his needs. It occurred to me now, Cylin must have had a private company back her up; she is a self-employed, a successful author.
One of the guys from the online tech company who was supposed to reel me in lost it. He started yelling at me. He called me spoiled. He said he could live on $700 for a year. Aside from the fact that he didn’t have a valid perspective on life in the US (a homeless person couldn’t make it on $700 a year), he was right; I was spoiled. I had the money to be reasonably casual about shelling out hundreds of dollars for tech support. I had the money, which allowed me to be lazy about checking out if this was really the best method for getting tech support. I do feel guilty. I do have so much when so many have so little.
I shared a sentence I worked on with my Hispanic sixth-grader. I don’t think I saw something like that until high school. It was a selection from John Muir’s journal. “ The Chattahoochee River was embanked with massive, bossy, dark-leaved water oaks and wreathed with _______ vines richly embroidered with ________ and colorful flowers. “ (This is from memory.)
After checking my email, I drove to town: post office, bank, and Target. I had four packages of books to mail. The boxes were of varying sizes. Two were fairly light; one was a struggle for me to carry to the car from the house. As usual, when I got there, I asked some man to help me. The fellow I flagged down was in his late 50s or early 60s. I asked him if he could carry one of the heavy ones. No worries. He loaded up with the two heavy ones and one lighter one. I took in the remaining lightweight package. It amazes me to see that kind of strength in anyone over 25. Was I ever strong enough to carry that load? I was quite athletic. I was strong, or at least I thought of myself that way.
The line was short at the post office today. The Christmas rush is over. When the clerk saw my package, she told me not to use duct tape. It curls in heat and then sticks to other packages. I still have a package of three rolls from Amazon; maybe I can still return them. I have to go out a buy more packing tape.
I did some more work in the library, looking for books. I would say we are almost ready to look for our next victim. I have sent something like 150 to the seminary in New Orleans and now something like 500-700 to the one in Menlo Park in California. I wrote John Coughlin; it was time to look for the next interested party.
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