Having wasted an entire morning trying to unscramble the login problems of my Pay Pal account, my nerves are a bit frayed. Fortunately, though, Lucy seems to have got the message that I really do not need her to march up and down on my keyboard to help. I was beginning to twitch.
Eventually, I got to speak to a human being who appeared to understand me . However, we came up against a security requirement that demands a wait of 24 hours before we can continue the process of cancelling my account and then re-activating it. All because of a glitch in their system.
The knowledge that tomorrow morning I have to start the process all over is not improving my frame of mind.
What are the chances that tomorrow I shall find a live person and persuade he or she that I am not a criminal trying to take over Carolyn’s account? These are the times when I could kill those foul creeps that steal people’s identity and cause so much mayhem. Can you imagine how lovely life would be if everyone was honest?
I don’t even remember the number of times I have had to shred a credit card because it has somehow become “compromised”, which involves notifying a long list of people. Somebody always gets forgotten, of course.
The wickedness of the human mind is appalling. For the past couple of months I have been getting emails from some poor fool who thinks he or she will persuade me to part with $2000 in return for their promise not to reveal to “all my co-workers and bosses as well as my dearly beloved family”, videos of myself in various alarming sexual positions.
The most recent such email claimed to have video of me performing astonishing types of masturbation.
It’s really sad, when you think about it. How hopeless must a person be to stoop to such desperation? It’s equally sad, though, that so many people fall for some of these “phishing” tricks. I was doing something online one day, with my mind totally occupied and next thing you know, I found myself hooked into a dastardly scheme. I felt such a fool, until I found out that a very educated and highly intelligent person of my acquaintance had fallen for the exact same thing.
Plenty of times, when I was travelling, I got taken for a fool over payment for a taxi or for some item I bought, but I never minded those things.
While I am by no means wealthy, I certainly had more than the people who took money from me and I always regarded that as fair.
There was always a gap between the rich and the poor, but in my lifetime it has become a chasm.
I am not jealous of the people on the other side. I have what I need and I am not interested in living the way I see those people live.
But I find it offensive in the extreme that I live in a country of such wealth that has so many people who cannot afford simple healthcare. To me this is immoral, beyond understanding. I can’t comprehend a leader who would tolerate such a condition.
The World will never be the Utopia I would like it to be. Those things exist in fairy stories, but basic decency, surely that is not too much to ask.
Surely the people who keep our infrastructure (such as it is) operating, deserve a wage that will afford them a comfortable life, at least.
Collecting rubbish, delivering mail, operating transport, providing food, not to mention healthcare workers. All these essential things seem taken for granted.
Why is it the rich cling so desperately to their billions? In the end their wealth will not make them less dead than the poor bloke who died without a penny to his name.
Is it that it makes the wealthy nervous, the idea that the “little people” might get airs “above their station” and not want to do all that tedious work anymore?
Someone has to. Besides, you don’t want to share your extravagant space with too many. Not of them!
Ironically, I understand that part, having often enough dealt with the “nouveau riche”. They are not a class act.
Of course the really really rich are never seen by the likes of me. They have people to take care of all the details for them. They would never stoop so low!
In the Concorde Lounge at JFK we used to have an open breakfast buffet. If you wanted toast, there was a toaster. But no-one had realized that some people wouldn’t know how to operate it.
We really do live in different worlds. I am content in mine. I am aware that many really wealthy people are very philanthropic and accomplish amazing humanitarian acts.
But if I could be granted one wish, it would be for the very rich to be required to spend a month in a slum, just to help them wake up, to become enlightened. They might even appreciate it.
Squirrel would-be-intruder:
“Where’s my nuts?”
Amen to everybody having to live in a slum, or work in a recycling center, or clean hospital rooms or some such to experience a slice of the world that too many people live in. Your photos as always are cheerful and charming. Good luck with the Paypal account.
Pay Pal became accessible by itself, glitch notwithstanding. Technology! I just changed my password and security questions.