May 12, 2020: Hot New Topics for Worry -

Back in my book company days, I used to keep a list of freak-out book titles, more or less the opposite of self-help manuals. I think they were self-destabilizing manuals, actually. Some people can’t get enough of that sort of thing.

One week we got both “Stones from the Stars” and “Diseases from Space.”  You might have thought the first was just a nice book about meteorites, but no – the stones in question were up to no good, where humankind was concerned. (I had to make sure I meant “meteorite” above, not something else, so I did a little Google search on asteroids, meteors, meteoroids, etc., which resulted in the following howler: 

It might be fair to say these rocks from space inspire both wonder and fear among us Earthlings. But knowing a bit more about each of them and how they differ may eliminate some potential misgivings. 

This eliminated zero misgivings, but I appreciated the effort. Also, I DID mean meteorites, which was nice to know.

Yesterday I realized we are seeing a surge in Hot New Topics for Worry, with gems like those great murder hornets, of course - not to mention the article letting us all know that more rats are now nesting in our infrequently-driven car engines, chewing on the wires that remind them of the roots in their old underground homes.  This news follows in the wake of the articles about how rats and mice, without their usual grazing grounds outside of restaurants, are now heading for our yards. But of course they are. (And now, Google tells me there is a Rat Bastard Root Beer, which brings back more book company memories, as we had a running joke there about Rat Bastards. Sigh.)

And it’s not just the rodents who have more time than ever to roam.  The bad guys are also very busy.  I know because we’ve had a touch of bank fraud in ye olde checking accounte.  Two days ago, I got an email from “Wells Fargo” telling me that someone had deposited money into our account.  I ignored it. I did not recognize the name, and I figured it was an email fake. But then yesterday, I got another, saying the same (unknown) woman had given us even more money. So I looked and by gum, we had $575 bucks in there in the last two days, actually IN the account.

I had to look her up.  She is a famous black Christian Gospel singer. (That’s what it says – I too thought “Gospel” pretty much assumed “Christian,” but that’s what her profile says, “Christian Gospel.”) Actually, there’s one singer, plus one evil twin with exactly the same name and profile pic, who is BOTH a famous black Christian Gospel singer AND an account manager at Wells Fargo.  And then there’s a triplet….

Despite the fact that Gospel singers are constantly sending me money, and despite the fact that I only recently argued that we all need a secret admirer, I somehow doubted that these deposits were a good thing. So I called Wells Fargo and we had quite a long chat, which a) meant that I was on the phone when I could have been Zooming with my buddies and b) meant that the whole rigamarole of changing passwords and implementing security and so forth had to happen.  The real Wells Fargo customer service person said Oh, yeah, we are getting a lot of this, meaning a lot of stealing money from person A and then stashing that money in the account of person B, and then…. She said it was a chain thing. For the life of me, I don’t get it, but I don’t think I need to. I believe we have taken care of it this time. Also, there were no rats under my hood, this Morning in America.