AGING AGGRAVATIONS -- "YES" AMERICA -- SCAMS

Life's little annoyances take on increasing aggravation with each year I become older and need to adjust to unwelcome physical limitations.  Perhaps some of you have found this to be true for yourself as well.

Unexpected, unusual household problems arise I've noticed ever since I've been on my own in this house, dedicated to living in place rather than in a retirement facility.  The most recent problem was the other day when I was retrieving my mail.  I discovered my mailbox detached on one side causing that box to hang down haphazardly.   That never happened before when my husband was living.  Time to search for a needed screw, but ultimately I had to drag out the hammer.  Resolving some problems easier said than done.

Would that all of the problems that come up could be so readily resolved, even if I couldn't find a screw and had to settle on a nail.  Hope that new nail instead of a screw holds the box well.  Perhaps the smooth nail will more readily loosen than a screw would.  

If that wasn't enough, I had to re-install the screw on the other side of the box, too, which suddenly released causing me to nearly drop the whole box as I was affixing the first side -- also, almost throwing me off balance to tumble down.  So far, I think I've successfully anchored the mailbox, but for how long?  Time will tell since the postal person likely won't be handling my mailbox gingerly when opening each day.

I chuckled to myself later thinking how this event could have resulted in another one of those weird insurance company descriptions they sometimes report as reasons for life insurance payout claims.  Perhaps the account would read like one of the following:

"Claimant's death attributed to fall, striking head on edge of concrete entry way while attempting to re-hang mailbox."   

"Claimant died when struck in the head by mailbox she was trying to re-hang."  

"Claimant died when falling on hammer handle that impaled her open mouth and throat throttling her."

Can you come up with a more bizarre one?

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Democracy survives assault ..... California's 286 million dollar wasteful expenditure of our tax monies the squandering Republican political party foisted on our citizens with the recent attempted special recall election of our Governor Gavin Newsom was unsuccessful by a large margin.  He'll be up for re-election when his regular term ends next year -- a regular election for which they should have waited.  

Thanking supporters voting "No" to recall Newsom, he focused on what this election really said "Yes" to as a state since the re-callers were mostly anti these items as reported in his speech in "The Week" magazine: 

We Californians said "Yes" to:

"science...vaccines...ending this pandemic.* 

"people's right to vote without fear of fake fraud or voter suppression.

"women's fundamental, constitutional right to decide for herself what she does with her body, her fate, her future.

"diversity, inclusion, pluralism.

"to all those things that we hold dear as Californians, and I would argue as Americans."

Newsom continued "Economic justice, social justice, racial justice, environmental justice, our values where California has made so much progress.  All of those things were on this ballot.

He said voters rejected "division, the cynicism, so much of the negativity that's defined our politics in this country over the course of so many years."

Newsom called on Californians to "disregard false separateness" and remember "we have so much more in common" than "we give ourselves credit for."

Correcting our state's recall election process may require three changes, I think.  One will be to increase the number of required signatures necessary to initiate a recall election.  

A second change would negate allowing a candidate receiving a percentage of votes far less than the combined majority from becoming our Governor as currently could occur if the majority voted to recall our Governor.  (This problem described in my previous post.)   

The expected solution will also be to designate the lieutenant governor, who is ordinarily the second in command of California's executive offices, to assume the top office in the event of future governors being recalled.

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Phone Scams ..... I stopped answering my phone for quite some time but recently have resumed answering a few calls for various reasons.  I notice most calls are recorded messages which I hang up on after the first couple words.  Then, there are those ever-present scams.  Here are a few of the most recent scams I've received.

One scam was a recorded message that I've received several times seemingly from different locations or numbers.   The caller claims to be from Amazon's customer service alerting me to a thousand dollar plus charge against my account (assumes I have one, I guess).  I ended the call at that point.  Additional phony information is given in the rest of their message, followed by instructions to follow in order to address the matter as I recall listening to months ago when I received the first call. 

Another scam was with a real live person.  He said he was a neighbor living up the street and gave a house number where he said he lived (I was pretty sure that number was non-existent, plus would have been down the street from where I lived, not up the street).  He added that he and son had painted my neighbor's house across the street which I did recall actually being done and said I had talked to him then.  I said I didn't recall such a conversation.

He elaborated, saying I had talked to him and to call later in the year.  Again, I said I didn't remember such a conversation.  He said in a cajoling manner, that I talked to him of having my house trim painted, that he had even given me a flyer.  I said, I never talked to anybody about painting the trim on my house.  He said nothing and abruptly hung up.  (Note:  my neighbors reported to me later their handyman, not this caller, painted their house.)

I wonder if this type scammer may focus on older people they think may have memory problems,  possibly even have dementia, who will also be polite, and maybe succumb to their friendly overture?

A third scam I just remembered was the phone call from a young-sounding male voice greeting me with "Hi, Grandma!".  I ended the call without responding as I always do since they've been coming periodically for several years.  One earlier call was "Hi Grandpa" thinking I was male, I guess.

I recall my hairdresser years ago, shortly after I received my first "Grandma" call, telling me about customers she characterized as intelligent as having fallen for this scam.  They had even rejected their bank teller's admonitions to not send money without further checking.  They persisted in withdrawing a large sum anyway, subsequently sending their unretrievable money to the scammer.  

Additional "stranger" calls come from contractors, solicitors wanting all sorts of donations, other commercial types.  I simply don't do business with any phone callers though some few may be legitimate.  I don't waste my time listening to familiar pitches, am not polite, and simply interrupt them by cutting them off.  My fantasy would be to eliminate all these scam calls and calls from strangers.   

I'm sometimes hard-pressed to view the benefits of some technologies as outweighing the negatives, but once they're in use, there's no going back.   Guess I'll return to not answering my phone again unless I recognize the number.