Treasures, Trash, and Scams

Happy New Year! I think I have one more day to say this- it seems appropriate until 15 Jan or so. Things have been going pretty well. I still feel a bit discombobulated with the move but we are so.close to being pretty set in our apartment.

We have thrown a lot away. There was a fair amount of stuff that we looked at and thought, enough. Some of it was just garbage, but we made a few runs to Goodwill. I have also revived my amateur power seller status on OfferUp and Facebook marketplace. But oh my gosh, there are so many scammers on FB marketplace and they’re not even good at it. Who falls for these things? Like, they immediately ask for your phone number and get aggressive when I say, No thanks, I’m good with texting. Then I block them after I ask that if I give my phone number, should I then send them the confirmation code that I’m surely about to receive via text *eyeroll*? Jerks.

I also had another scammy experience with the “Yolo County Sherif” calling and saying that I had missed a court date/hadn’t answered a subpoena. YOLO! I have no idea what the angle of this call was? Maybe I could pay my missed court appearance fine with Amazon gift cards? Who knows. I listened to the guy for about two minutes, but then I told him it sounded like a scam. He assured me that it wasn’t (so relieved!) and then, when I said it still sounded suspicious, he said that it was a professionalism issue that now that I had made initial contact with them I should…hang up. I should hang up, which I did. They tried calling back, but of course I didn’t answer. I don’t know, there’s something about someone lecturing me about professionalism that sounds like grasping for straws and is so obviously fake that I am done. And in case you are worried that this could possibly be true and I better watch out for a Yolo arrest, two of my colleagues received similar calls on the same day.

I have also re-homed my off-brand Hulk hands that I bought for a resident skit several years ago. Although they are great, it’s time for them to find a new purpose. In this case, I gave them to a colleague/friend for her four year old’s Hulk-themed birthday party. So, in celebration/memorial, I took a few pictures of “driving” with the hands. Do not fear, I was stopped in traffic.

One thing we did not get rid of was the above watercolor. I find this picture absolutely hilarious, plus it’s in a pretty good frame which I repurposed for a picture that I actually take seriously. The reason why Vagina Tree is so funny to me is the story behind it. SMS took pictures for a local artist’s show. As part of his payment, he was allowed to pick a painting. He picked this painting! I had thought he was given this painting but the fact that he picked this out when he had other options (i.e. anything else) is still making me laugh.

So, that’s it for today’s episode of Treasures, Trash, and Scams. I would be ok if this was a one-and-done thing to start the new year, but I will keep you posted!