Once again the glass was half-full…
Sitting in a courtroom Monday, cellphone on the chair to my left to muffle vibration, the damn thing kept buzzing. Moreover, a casual peek (so as not to offend the Court) revealed multiple calls from sources unknown. Only at a recess did I learn just why.
I’d been hacked! An email generated under my name had claimed I’d been mugged in the Philippines.
No wonder Brother Dan had called, later texting “Are you ok?”.
Me in the Philippines? Get real. The closest I ever was to those islands (and I had to google this to confirm), was the trip to Frisco in ’82. (Ed. Note 1: I didn’t want to go there, of course, but ensconced still in marriage, we spent a few days there).
Me in the Phillipines? C’mon. Jamaica, for a daughter Yes. Aruba with a woman, Yeah. But ME? IN THE PHILIPPINES?
Those who knew me best knew me better. So I didn’t hear, of course, from the Fentons and Wieders. (Nor did I expect to, or think perhaps that they didn’t care). There was a better chance I was pregnant, they well understood, than in the Philippines.
—Still, touched I was as from canyons of my past old voices were heard. Moved I was when more recent contacts, perhaps not privy to my relish for Ohio, also reached out.
It’s nice to know people care.
I got a call from a high-powered attorney I’d dealt with but once. (Years ago it was…a nasty divorce…only counsel got along). And another lawyer phoned too— a politician at that. So right wing is this one that (as the saying goes), he doesn’t even turn left.
And another, from the undertaker. Kirk, in a message at my office, left word he’d send three bucks for the cause.
Word kept dribbling in.
I heard from the Corky’s cashier: “Were you really mugged?” From a Park Synagogue vet: “That’ll teach you to travel.” And I heard too from a slew of old clients. (Ed. Note 2: Interestingly, a text came from a lady that’d stiffed me. Three grand she owes to this day; she didn’t offer money but she still checked in. What was she: hoping it was true?).
And still, the hits kept on coming!
—A text from a girl I’d dated for a year and another from one who’d denied dating me for two…
—And the following cellular colloquy with the lady who bore me three children…
“Got an email from you saying you were in the Philippines, depressed and asking for money.”
AND BEFORE I COULD RESPOND:
“You can do it!!!!” she texted next, and then:
“Very comical.”
(Ed. Note 3: We never did think the same things were funny. Two decades post-decree she thinks I’m stranded in some third-world country and THAT she thinks is humorous?).
The more calls I got though, the more I found it amusing. Heart-warming, even… to think even those perhaps ancillary to my being still cared.
—Until the music was over.
Kenny, (family and former government agent), phoned. Assuming I’d been hacked and mensch that he is, he was just making sure.
“Should I change my password?” I asked him. (‘Twas the kind of thing he’d know).
“Yes, and your name and server.”
Dead silence on my part.
“Just sayin’”, he added.
I didn’t even know what a server was. Still I thanked him, bid adieu, and in a moment of clarity did the “next right thing”.
“I need to change my email,” I said to my kid, in a call that I didn’t want to make. For years he’s been telling me to escape the “dark ages”; for just as long I have balked, resisting change. (Ed. Note 4: My relationship with AOL was nearly as long as my marriage to his mother. Go figure).
Yet the boy came through, as I knew he would.
Painstakingly he worked with me, both that day and the next. Did he know ahead of time how computer-illiterate I was? It mattered not. When all was said and done my friends had answered the bell, my son had answered the call, and I emerged from this week of disarray with a new password, new name, and new server.
(Not that I know what that means).
Please advise Aunt Helen of your new email address. I really don’t want her complaining to me that you are not responding to her emails.
I already did. Had to. She orders her food on line these days.
Three or four years ago Randy had the same hacker although he was in Montreal I think. In that case I actually wondered. Glad you had fun with this. Is the line on your ex fact, fiction, or faction?
100 % quote.