When *S*****T* Happens

/ Pam Goode


Well then.

Sometimes it feels like the world is caving in a bit, and maybe it is; or maybe it isn’t and it’s all just coming from me.

For the second time, I’ve had my credit card stolen at a place that I frequent regularly — a place filled with kind, quiet, people who spend a couple of hours working on their computers in a pleasant environment. The first time it happened, I felt like it must have somehow been my fault. Of course it wasn’t.

Now that it’s happened a second time, I’m livid and … something else that I haven’t yet identified. The difference is that this time I told everyone nearby immediately and then pretty much everyone I know when I got home. Why? Because I don’t want it to happen to anyone else. Yes, I’m savvy enough to know that these things happen all around us far too often, but loving enough to believe that I won’t be robbed because I’m a good and kind person. Yes, well … I guess that’s naive to a “T” isn’t it?

And it leaves me wondering about life in so many ways.

One of the problems for me is that I really, really don’t want to have to beware every time I leave the house. I really, really don’t want to believe that any passerby and his mother is out to steal from me and who knows who else. And I really, really don’t want to spend the rest of my life watching my back. I’d like to say that I refuse to live that way, but the truth is that I won’t be able to let it go — I’ll be watching my back pretty much forever now. I suppose you could say that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t feel good to me.

Yes, it’s a huge wake-up call that hopefully melds okay-ish with my life, but there will always be a part of me that hates it.

11 thoughts on “When *S*****T* Happens”

  2. Seems to be somewhat commonplace these days. Unfortunately, at least as far as it concerns me, and I suppose many of us who didn’t grow up with computers, there is a lack of understanding when it comes to what goes on behind the scenes. We see a bed of roses, but are unaware of the thorns, the aphids, the powdery mildew, and the numerous other creatures and pathogens that lurk within the foliage. My computer is my treasury of all my writing, my tax records, my correspondence, my financial transactions, in fact, it’s the closest thing I have to a summary of my life! And yet, it is constantly telling me that “someone is tracking me” or “your data is at risk” and I can’t tell if it is legitimate or is it a fishing expedition by some evil force lurking in the shadows of my software. I do regular backups but never really know if they are actually copies of everything that is important, and more specifically, if they are uninfected. At any rate, I do breathe more calmly each time the computer opens up to something that I actually searched for! As for your credit card, be particularly cautious when using a card reader that is somehow misaligned, modified, or otherwise appears to have been tampered with. This may indicate that a skimmer has been added to the reader, often without the establishment knowing, and it can relay your card info to the perpetrator at some remote location. Anyway, sorry about the theft and your “unidentified” feeling – possibly helplessness? Regardless, know that you are indeed, good and kind, and not alone in your naivete!

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  3. I’m so sorry about what happened to me and I have to be honest, my husband has always told me ‘trust no-one’. Its hard but that seems to be the way things are now, maybe they always were and we didn’t realise it till now.

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