It seems that your reporter (above, with smiling blond woman and ugly panting dog) can hardly report fast enough on one old coot being slicked out of his money before another pops up. The crime is so prevalent locally that maybe a special police unit should be formed to prevent the parting of these living mummies from their money. Certainly the job would be a difficult one and, judging by a recent incident, maybe an impossible one.
Some local gent, an 88-year-old feller, was convinced over the phone the other day that he had just won a shiny new Cadillac. He was also informed that he had won a million bucks to go with it (which is about what it would take to keep the machine in fossil fuel for a year). All he had to do, of course, was send a small consideration (in this case, $2,500) to such-and-such simply to grease the wheels and free up the gifts. All standard operating procedure, don’t you know. Older than dirt though Wilbur may have been, slow he was not. Straight away, with all the spring in his step that a free lunch can deliver, he rockets to the bank. Once it was learned the nature of the visit, bank employees tried to talk the greedy old dude out of it; but no, the customer was “insistent” that all was legit. Thus, quicker than one could say “Abbra Cadaver” the money flew right from Wilbur’s account and straight splash into the river of no return.
Later, when Wilbur tried to withdraw even more dough for the same reason, cops stepped in and finally convinced him--no doubt after half a day of “reasoning”--that it all was a scam. But really? What in the hell can one do if someone like this, someone totally off their nut, demands the right to just give away their hard-earned money to crooks? The fact is, the victim above was entitled to do whatever he liked with the money, be it burn it, bury it, or, if he chose, use it as toilet tissue. If the criminals themselves were not such a loathsome lot, I almost would say of Wilbur and such others in the world, “it serves them right!”
A few blogs back I mentioned Michelle’s son, Matt, finding a murdered man a few doors down from his Tarpon Springs condo. Well, that formerly crime-free haven suffered yet again yesterday when four more people were discovered dead in a home. The slaughter was an apparent suicide/triple homicide. This small, scenic tourist stop of lagoons, fishing boats and Greek restaurants is turning into a regular homicidal heaven, it seems, with seven murders in under three months. Nearby Tampa has been hit by a spate of cop-killings, about one a day, I would guess. And the folks in Florida say, “Bring on the electric bleachers.”
On Sunday, a local cyclist was just tooling along, happy as a clam, enjoying a gorgeous day over on the mainland in Englewood. As he passed near the entrance to a antique car show then in progress, a 1965 Cobra was just leaving. From some impulse--perhaps he imagined that he was a stupid teenager again—the driver decided to burn some rubber and show the crowd what a man he was. Gunned it, goosed it, lost it, flipped it, landed square on the biker, squashed him flat as fettuccine. End of story.
A few weeks ago, some local wheelchair-bound woman was out one dark night in the bike lane of a busy highway. She and her motorized chair were rolling north in the southbound lane. If this lady was attempting suicide, she succeeded.
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Tropical Fish of the Day
