Dr. James L. Snyder
As a child, I remember my parents saying to me, “I’m not going to tell you this again.” The only problem with that was they did tell me again. And again. And again.
It was hard for me to trust my parents along this line. They always gave me warnings, and then when I would do it again, they would give me another warning. I began to realize that they weren’t taking these warnings seriously.
The only thing I can think of is that they may not have remembered telling me that in the first place. I can understand that.
Now that I’m an adult, I’m the one giving this last and final warning. And, of course, my children responded to it the same way I responded to my parents. I think it might be an inherited attitude.
However, I’m now in a different situation. I receive letters at least once a week, warning me that this is their last and final notice about my car or home warranty. If I had all the postage that accumulated over the years from these letters, I could retire in style.
Usually, I ignore these letters, except when they contain a prepaid postage envelope. I usually take those envelopes, put a track in them, seal the envelope, and then put it in the mailbox.
I never know if these tracks work because I never hear back from them.
Over the last several years, a new level of inquiry has emerged. It is a wonderful invention by Alexander Graham Bell called the telephone. Every day, I receive a phone call warning me that this is their last and final warning concerning my expiring car warranty.
If only that were true.
The trouble with these “stupid” phone calls is that there’s no real person on the other end. I don’t mean me; I mean their end. It’s all recorded, and how they do that is above my pay scale.
I can’t do anything with these recorded messages, so I hang up. After all, what else can I do? Indeed, I would like the opportunity to give them a piece of my mind and tell them to stop calling me. But that is not on the agenda.
Then, beginning in December with the annual Medicare renewal time, I have some actual people call me.
The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage refuses to answer these calls, and often, will take the phone off the hook for the whole day.
But I have a different perspective. After all, I am retired and do have some free time to mess around. When I get one of these calls from a live person, I dive into it with all the nonsense I have, which is quite a lot.
After all, they called me, I did not call them.
The calls I like are those in which I’m asked personal questions.
“Do you have diabetes?”
I always respond to them, ‘No, I don’t have diabetes, but I am a very sweet guy.” Usually, when I say that on the other end of the phone, there’s an amazing “click.”
There are times when I answer using the voice of Daffy Duck. I’ve done this so often that I’m becoming quite skilled at it. Several times, when I respond to them on my end of the phone, they respond with a long list of vulgarities. And they asked me to do things to myself that are physically not possible.
One question I enjoy is when people ask me how old I am. I usually respond, “I don’t know how old I am because my age changes every year and I don’t know what it’s going to change to this year.”
I can’t tell how many were so confused by my answer that they said nothing and just hung up on me.
If someone calls me on the phone and offers me a product they think I would want, I wouldn’t take it from them. I will never trust anybody who randomly calls me with a product that I would really want.
Recently, I’ve been winning money from a PCH contest. I don’t recall signing up for this contest, but I was grateful to have won it. The one prize was $8.5 million and a brand-new Porsche. I couldn’t tell you how excited I was to win all of this. It certainly was my lucky day.
In processing this, all I had to do was send them $14,000 for the processing fee, and then I would receive all that money, along with the brand-new car.
I’m a Pennsylvania Dutchman, and we are rather frugal with our money. You touch my money, and I may say something nice at your funeral.
These phone calls are not going to stop. But no matter how many call me, they’re not getting one dime from me. I only wish it were true when they say, “This is your last and final warning.”
It’s amazing how many people lie for a living. Thinking on this I was reminded what Solomon said, and he was spark on. “Lying lips are abomination to the Lord: but they that deal truly are his delight” (Proverbs 12:22).
Whenever a person lies it has a way of coming back to them. I remember my father use to say that if I didn’t lie I wouldn’t need a good memory. I have lived long enough to understand what he meant.
Dr. James L. Snyder lives in Ocala, FL with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. Telephone 1-352-216-3025, e-mail jamessnyder51@gmail.com, website www.jamessnyderministries.com
