The Publisher’s Clearing House Sweepstakes is well-known and legit, but when a friend called to say he’d won $100,000, I had to break the bad news that the letter he received was a scam. I had seen it explained on TV the night before. Now he is furious because I “ruined everything.” Luckily he had not sent the crooks “$800 in taxes.” That is a sure scam sign; winners are never asked for money. Google “PCH scam” for full details.
Seniors are the preferred scam victims; so when a letter arrives with suspiciously good news, check it out by calling the phone number on the company’s official Web site; not the number they give you in the letter. Why not? They, the crooks, will answer, dummy! Be especially wary of the word free. It is used to open the door to your contact information for high pressure sales later. Furthermore, note the carefully worded enticements and the long cautionary statements at the end of the TV or magazine ads often with unknown medical terms, impossible to read small print and half-second “something” flashed on the TV screen. All these things should ring an alarm bell. Unfortunately, they usually don’t and that is what the scumbags are counting on.
They hope you won’t pay attention to: paid actor, may help, usually, decreases appearance of, results not typical, results may vary. My favorite is, “re-enactment of a typical demonstration.” Except for “of” and “a” every word contains an escape from a lawsuit just like all the previously mentioned words and phrases. As for the phone caller’s instruction, “Push 1 to stop further calls.” Don’t. If you do, it tells them you’re a sucker who listened to the whole recording. Just hang up – at once. Face it. Unknown callers do not want to talk to you about something; they want to talk you into something.
The curse of gym class
My dad watched all the big games. My brother played on several teams. When the University of Rhode Island combined the men’s and women’s Phys. Ed. departments into one, my cousin Jeanette beat out the male faculty members to become its first chairperson. Clearly, my family was sports friendly, except for me. I tried, but the fun of getting drunk in a freezing stadium and the excitement of seeing a ball being thrown, hit or bounced back and forth somehow escaped me. Actually doing it was out of the question.
The hunky guys, however, were a joy to watch and the athletic gals were fodder for many a lesbian fantasy. I paid special attention to the cute swimmers and male cheerleaders. Unfortunately, their sexual athleticism was always slightly suspect; like the band’s flamboyant drum-majors.
My non-interest in sports was fueled by the school gym classes in which I was always picked last. Not that I seriously blame them. I guess there’s something about me that said, “He’ll drop the ball – if he ever catches it.” True, but catching hurt my hand, hitting the damn ball was impossible with that heavy bat, the basket was miles about my head and worse, as long as there was no snow on the ground, we had to “play” outside. Not my fault! Finally the coach assigned me to spend the time exercising with the blind student. A great idea. We had fun running around the field and chatting (He became Maine’s only blind attorney and later a district court judge).
All in all, the gym was a boring place (except for the locker room). The butch gays in the closet and the lesbians often enjoyed the games, but they seldom got a rise out of me. The best I could do was to be or dream of being an athletic supporter.
