Senior Classes, Scams and Reading Addictions

I signed up to go to two, free back-to-back classes at the senior hall with lunch in between. I should have known when the company sponsoring the seminar is giving you a free lunch there will be a significant sales pitch involved. Still, the two topics were interesting---just not exactly what I expected. The morning class was all about scams, schemes and swindles and how to protect yourself against them and it all boils down to not being gullible---my word, not theirs. Apparently, there are still people out there who believe they can win lotteries they didn’t enter overseas or they trust that people who send them checks for hundreds more than something they are selling on Craig’s List made an ‘honest mistake’ and you can just go ahead, cash their (phony) check and make it right by refunding them the difference. And apparently, there are still people who will fall for the phone scam about grandsons needing get-out-of-jail-money or that your computer is being taken over by a virus but never fear, the guy on the phone can help you stop it. I didn’t learn about any scams I didn’t already know about, but on the other hand it’s a good idea to be reminded of them from time to time because who knows when your brain cells will get wiped out by a meteor shower. 

The afternoon session was all about the services of a company that was new to me but has been around our town for thirteen years, a group of eighteen---all women---CPAs and Daily Money Managers for seniors. It’s for people who are struggling with keeping up with mail, bill paying, filing receipts, budgeting, doing income taxes or who are trying to sort out their medical bills and their insurance issues. They’ll do everything but sign your checks which they are not authorized to do---it’s not a conservatorship---nor will they teach you about investing, which is what I thought the lecture was going to be about. My mistake, I didn’t read the class description carefully enough. I did, however, pick up a good resource for researching the background and experience of financial brokers, advisers and firms---BrokerCheck.org. It was on a handout they gave us and that handout was worth my time spent at these classes. Assuming, of course, that when I need those resources links I’ll still know where I filed the handout and I’ll remember how to use a computer. Those meteor showers can melt the marbles in your head if you're not wearing your tinfold hat.

One interesting fact about this group is that they are funded by a senior millage, one I voted for and they charge on a sliding scale from $3.00 to $48.00 an hour. Boo hoo, guess which end of the scale I fall in. The average person who uses the service has two, two hour house calls per month. I do not need a service like this but it’s nice to know it exists. And if you are poor and lonely it would be worth $12.00 a month just to get four hours’ worth of company. For me, at the rate of $48 times four ($192) I’d rather hire someone to take me out for a nice steak, a bottle of wine and a movie. And it bums me out that I’d be essentially paying twice if I use this service---in my county taxes to supplement their other clients and then again by check for myself. Still, I can see how a service like this can keep you living longer in your own home. When you’re old and alone in the world, if you keep forgetting to pay your utilities social services steps in and bing-bam-boom you're shipped off to a nursing home via way of a court order. (That's not a joke like meteor showers and tinfold hats, in case you're wondering.)

Change of topic: Reading has become my excuse for not doing stuff I should be doing now that summer is here. If it was a drug I should be in rehab to rid myself of the gotta-read-monkey on my back. If I’ve got a book or the Kindle in my hand, I can’t do exercise I desperately need to be doing nor can I deep clean my closet, prepare things to take to the auction house or organize a garage sale. In the past month I’ve read The President is Missing; The Handmaid’s Tale, The Woman who Smashed Codes; Murder, Curlers and Cream; The Good Widow; Born a Crime; and I just started reading two books at once: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry for book club and the Luckiest Girl Alive just because the title called me over to the book rack at the grocery store like a drug pusher promising me a good time if I’d just exchange a little money for what he’s selling.

The Handmaid’s Tale surprised me the most because I didn’t realize it was dystopian novel set in the near future after the U.S. government had been overthrown and taken over by a totalitarian, patriarchal society. (Silly me, I thought it was going to be a tale about a too-weird-for-words cult.) Thank goodness I don’t have Hula or I’d be binge watching The Handmaid's Tale seasons one and two. I long to know more! In the era we’re in right now, it’s easy to suspend my disbelief and imagine that something like the author wrote about could actually happen if we don’t reign in our collective intolerance and start doing some critical thinking about what it means to be the kind of nation our Founding Fathers envisioned---one that values Truth, Justice and Compromise. ©