scammers get back

Today has been a day of irrationalities.

It began well, up on time, crack ‘o dawn, all morning rituals, Morning Pages completed in the notebook resting on a hardcover Pablo Picasso Retrospective, which I carry around to open and be artistically stimulated but these days only serves as a desktop on the futon in Kate’s sun-room which I lean over to write, and, oh, my back cries Mary.

I did that stuff and then I zoomed some cats and kitties in Encinitas, up the CA coast 25 miles from San Diego, and then I eletrically trimmed my beard in Kate’s backyard without a mirror to be all kinds of presentable and then – bam – had a zoom job interview – What? The kid heading back to the salt mines at 72? What? So I had the interview, slightly coincidentally also in Encinitas, and my sense after the interviewer “ended the session” rather speedily was that the old Budster human service magic may have waned in 10 years of retirement. I’ve been wrong about self-assessment of how interviews have gone before, though, so I’m pledging (to me) to keep an open mind.

Here’s where the truly irrational giggles its way onto the scene. After having thought I could maybe scrounge up a chunk of employment income to offset the wickedly stupid and for sure offensive high costs of living anywhere these days, and especially where I would and do want to live – San Diego, Oakland CA a close second – and then with the sense of, well, there goes that plan, I trundled over to the computer which Kate hooked up and got running for me on a low coffee table here on Kate’s patio, so more leaning over and – Yow, my back! – I immediately went to the San Diego version of Craigslist and proceeded to reply to four or five very expensive listings and tried to convince their authors that it was me, the Oregon kid, marriage-less, homeless, and still filled with a giddy hopefulness – that would be their perfect roommate and, come on, what do ya say? Every one of these posts with the exception of one asked for a rent sum beyond my monthly Soc. Sec. payback from the feds. And having said that – and already back there in the first sentence outed myself as wicked irrational – before you run to the reply space and ask me just what the “f” I’m doing, I want you to know that being worried about being considered truly stupid is so far down my list of things of concern these days it barely registers under an electron microscope. In other words – don’t bother.

Plus, I’ve been sending out replies to folks listing rooms for rent for six weeks now and have received none in return. In my mind’s eye I see someone looking twice at their screen to make sure what they are seeing is real – some old white guy, think Walter Brennan, wants to move in and be roommates – after the laughing dies away – hahahahahahahahaha……. they hit delete. “Fucking loser” I imagine them saying which, that, makes me chuckle a little.

Instead, you know who gets back? Scammers. Scammers get back. Every single time. Can’t let shit fo’ brains get away. Fortunately, after traveling only once far down the road of compliance, stopping only with the first and last in the mail please thing, I’ve learned to spot early on those who live for and by scamming. An early tip-off is they can’t and/or don’t bother to spell for crap – “Lovely Rume for Rental. Free Tilities Two. Won’t Last. Replie with Socal Security.” See, I done honed my detection skills.

The fact remains, though, apart from scammer proclivities, that I have behaved irrationally a bunch already, and it’s still early. And, with three weeks exactly left before no more address anywhere, I’m feeling kind of spirited today. A bit mischievous. Like I’m right where I’m supposed to be.