Fun with Scrappy, fun with scammers.

Scrappy’s favorite thing to do- next to a walk- is begging.  No, not panhandling on the street corner, just table scraps (and no, that’s not how he got his name).  In fact, if we delay too long to eat our dinners after he has his, he’ll actually beg us to go make our dinners (me and Laurie are 99% self-serve at mealtime).

So tonight while I was reading and commenting on you all’s stories,  Laurie grabbed out the remainders of some deli sandwiches she bought last night while I was working an hour and a half’s OT.  She had, in fact, finished what she was going to eat by the time I got up to prepare my repast.  She had a couple of the sandwiches left, closed up in the original packaging, and the Miracle Whip nearby and open.  This became a continuous “Bark!”  “No!”  “Bark!” “No"!” conversation between the two of them, and she told him to”see what daddy’s doing” to get his mind off things.  I , as usual, told him, “What do you want?” and since I was in the remove the Salisbury steak from the box and put in the microwave point, he swiftly returned.  I stepped back into the living room and watched him return to Laurie.  She told him, “No”, and he turned on his heels and came up to me.  I, in turn, also said “No”, whereupon he returned to his mommy.  This went on for at least five or six cycles, until Laurie burst out laughing and I went to check on my meal.

When I re-emerged, he was back at it and I suggested putting MW on his nose.  When Laurie did so, his first- and first several- reactions were to remove the MW from his nose by LICKING HIS LEG.  He grew increasingly frustrated with this process’ lack of success, and finally barked/pleaded with his mom to help him get it off.

The final chapter of the story (all of which occurred during the eight minute of my meal cooking) came when all the sudden a verse from the song Spiders And Snakes came into my mind- the one where Jim Stafford picks up the frog and sticks it in his gal’s face, saying, “This frog’s for you!”  Naturally I had to act out, and with no frogs hopping about our living room, I grabbed his hollowed-out chew bone and used it.  While Laurie’s still trying to figure out on which of the many planets that I’ve visited frog=bone, Scrappy comes up, suddenly desperate for his bone.  He snatched it from me, crossed the living room, chewed for about a second and a half.  Then he came back to the thought of the remaining sandwiches and the MW, and ran back to mom- and then to the bone- and then to mom- and then to the bone- and back to mom.  He finally stayed at Laurie’s side for long enough that I retrieved the bone, did the whole “This frog’s for you” thing again, and again he snatched the bone away- and this time, after much deliberation, stayed with it.

At least, until my Salisbury steak was done.

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Now, then, it’s time to revisit fun with scammers.  Some of this I’ve been sitting on for a while until I had a good body of material to work from.  The first one is all the way back from Dec. 8th, and is from Mr. Nicholas Brumley, financial mgr. at First Active Finance.  He informs me of a fund I need to claim because the auditors have tumbled upon it.  A major scam faux pas is committed by Mr. Brumley as he neglects to inform me of how BIG a fund it is; only that if I don’t claim it by one week, it would be “transferred into the suspense account of British financial governing as unclaimed”.

So what is a suspense account?  Is it set up by Alfred Hitchcock?  Should I let it build until it is unbearable?  I guess we’ll never know, as I let the 15th slip by without so much as a call.  Que Sera Sera.

Next up is one I got just Tuesday, from one Mr. David William.  He is, he says, “a registered staff” of DHL.  Not a staff MEMBER, mind you, but a whole staff unto himself.  He then explains that that makes him a “special agent” for DHL, which he has been for 8 years.  In all those years, though, DHL never required proper punctuation- he was 1-for-6 in capitalizing the word “I”.

So he goes on to say, “i have this little deal i want us to handle, but i will need to get your approval before we go ahead, it is 100% risk free, payment is 50/50.”  After telling me what he wants to know from me, he signs off, but not before adding just one more layer to his job description at DHL- “Delivery suppervissor”.  Need I add that both of these are marked on the e-mail header as “Cyrillic”, as in “translated from Russian”.

Today’s contestant is Mr. Williams Richard (continuing the theme of 2 first names), only adding the classy beginning of, “From the desk of” to the e-mail.  He goes on to say that he is giving me a message from the “Office of the Presidency”, though he neglects to tell me the presidency OF WHAT.  If you scroll down though, eventually you find it is the presidency of Benin, hated African rival of Nigeria in the scam business.

The good news is that the O-O-P has decided that they want to clear off outstanding funds, and to help encourage me to claim that pesky $2.7 million that’s just lying around in their way, they are dropping the amount they want to charge me to get it to an “affordable” $99.  Also, “The President Yayi Boni has gazette this payment and approved fund has been inputted into our secure e-transfer system “.  Wow!  How did he “gazette” the payment?  And does “imputted” mean he shot it into the system with a fart?

He goes on to request two sets of info.  The first is the standard personal data; the second, well, look at it, and pay close attention to the last line:

Bank name********
Address**************
Telephone***************
Account name************
Bank account number********
Your nest of king*************

Yeah, I have a whole nest of kings, doesn’t everyone?  But at least ol’ Bill Dick is a nice chap.  He ends with:
“ Once again, thank you very much for your understand.
I wish you good lucky. “


Finally, this was a spam comment on TAW I received back on December 18th.  Of course, anonymous.  Here’s just a sample:
“Quaint windup is wisecracking. Uprisen tactlessness is the myalism. Mobbish fibrosis the sandboy. Palestinian yells digitalizes during a pukeko. Record is the conciliar victual. Beseechingly remorseless heliogravure will havery painstakenly refreshed besides the unembarrassed flagon.”
This goes on for a full 31 nonsense sentences, including my favorite, “That is to say stoneground kestrel was mephitically hemolyzing with a cyberspace. “  At the end of which is a web address which I believe ends up being a site to buy black market Viagra.  Makes me wonder what Laurie’s been saying about me on Farmarama. 

So that wraps up our scam-stravganza for tonight.  Lessons learned: #1- Type it out in English, so windows live mail doesn’t let me know that you are a Russian posing as a Britisher (or a DHL delivery suppervissor). #2- let me know how much money I don’t really have you’re threatening to put into a suspense account.  #3, let me know who your boss is the president of, and for God’s sake, don’t be imputting money you want to send me.  #4- you’ll have more good lucky if you don’t ask about my nest of king. #5- PETA will get you if you don’t stop stonegrinding those poor kestrels.