Parker County Today Magazine June 2020 | Page 130

our opinions: CURMUDGEON MUSINGS The Last Word By MARK BROWN Coping With Big Rip-Offs JUNE 2020 PARKER COUNTY TODAY Have you ever noticed that the world we live in is full of people just dying to rip you off? It reminds me of a quote I heard once: “Sincerity is everything, and once you learn to fake that, the rest is easy.” And in order to survive, everyone is trying to protect their life with all kinds of new equipment. Digital cameras all over their yards and businesses. Cameras on their doorbells. The only thing not protected is our brains. We become victims by saying too much, sharing too much. Our credit card numbers are flying all over the world like birds. We have devices in our homes that supposedly can hear and save everything we say. As each day goes by you have to admit things get more and more complicated. It takes more and more of our time just to halfway keep up. Our world started with the 10 commandments, and now we have the tax code. Now we have a concentration camp of user names and passwords, double and triple authentication codes. It seems like the world is full of people with larceny in their hearts. What Covid-19 has done, besides shut down our world, is create a whole new field for crooks to thrive in. Everything anyone has done to try to help the C-19 victims, the crooks have taken advantage of. Honestly you really shouldn’t take phone calls, unless you really know who is calling, you shouldn’t give out any kind of personal information on insta/ google/tweet/face. You should live by these rules in talking to anyone. When in doubt shut up! And “less is best.” Sometimes I feel like I am riding a tricycle in a barrel of molasses, trying to get things done. So, with that said, on to the positive side, we live in a world where it is easy to be negative. A guy I worked with once said: “If you open up the hood of most people’s heads, you find that they have two negative poles on their battery.” Let’s not be that way. It is a choice, of course. Let’s change things. Get one of those big black trash bags and put all the negative in your house in that bag. Then put it out by the curb with the other trash. And when the sanitation truck comes, and they reach down to pick up the bag it will probably float up into their hands, and they will ask what’s in there? You can say, “That’s all of the negative in our house, we are getting rid of it!” Laugh! Have a little fun! Think about this, another gentleman I worked for said, “The key to any success is helping people. If you can figure out how to help people, you have it made.” So that is your homework for the month. Spend time thinking how you can help someone. You do that and I guarantee you will have a great month. 128