YOU Tell ME

Somebody's sellin', and I ain't buyin' it!

Here we go again. Another period of extra scammers who are trying to test Val's patience. I don't know who's responsible for doling out my phone and email like cheap candy on October 31st. 

Every night (technically early morning) between 12:00 and 1:00 a.m., I get an email from some gal with an insurance agency wanting me to remember to DocuSign a form. No thank you, Ma'am. Even though it's a company with which we do flip house business, it is not in your state, and you are not our agent. Also, my name is not Robert. And why can't you at least operate during standard business hours?

This Robert guy must be forking out money all over the place. I get emails saying that a car dealership has not received the documents he was supposed to send them. That's in South Carolina. Maybe it's about his insurance, heh, heh!

Anyhoo... I also get calls, which are easier to ignore. If I don't answer, I don't wonder what it's all about. There's one number that keeps calling. It's from my supplemental health insurance. I know, because sometimes they leave a message telling me to call them back.

AS IF! Now the dang telemarketers want ME to do THEIR work! After so many years of actually answering, only to find out they want to push some "benefit" like mail order prescriptions, and don't want to take NO for an answer... I quit wasting my time answering. Here's the thing, which I explained to them. I live a mile up a gravel road. I don't trust my 90 days of prescriptions to actually reach me when I need them. My mail is not secure. Anybody driving by can help themselves. 

Anyhoo... the health insurance company calls several times a day. Usually when I'm driving. They called early a couple days ago, before I left for town. I answered, my intention to tell them I was not interested, and to stop calling me.

"Hello? I'm with Your Health Insurance, and I'm calling to speak with Val Thevictorian."

"This is Val."

"I know that your birthdate is [Month/Day]. Can you please give me the year to verify your identity?"

"No. You have all the information. I shouldn't need to tell you."

"Well. I am required to ask you that to make sure I don't release any medical information to the wrong person."

"YOU called ME. So you already know that. I'm not giving out that information. What do you need to talk to me about?"

"I can't tell you that without verifying your identity."

"You send me statements in the mail, and offers and notices. Anybody could open them. I figure if it's something important, you can mail it to me. So I guess we're done talking, because I'm not giving you my birth year. No need to stay on the phone or call me again. You have a nice day."

A couple minutes later, I got an email about the Silver Sneakers program. The email didn't ask for my birth year. It was my LAST CHANCE to sign up and take online classes about moving my body.

Lap House MIGHT Get a Little Attention This Week

Hick said over the weekend that he planned to start working on Cheap House for three hours in the mornings, and Lap House for three hours in the afternoons. He broke the news to Old Buddy, who had said he was ready to get back to work.

Monday morning, I mentioned that I'd read the Chester, Illinois bridge was going to be demolished. Hick has taken this bridge many times in his travels. It's about an hour away from here. His ears perked up.

"That would be something to see!"

He googled, and found out it would be happening that morning. Not convenient for him, though I suspect if I'd told him about it the night before, he would have gone.

Tuesday, Hick and Old Buddy went to the city, to pick up the laundry room cabinets from the rich guy's kitchen renovation. Did he do laundry in the kitchen, I wonder? Anyhoo... Hick was home by 2:00. So the flippin' plans were not realized that day.

Here it is Wednesday, as I type. Hick forgot his phone at home, and came out to get it around 10:00. Then he was headed back to the Senior Center for lunch. I'm trying to figure out when all this work is getting done

Hick DID send me some pictures from inside Lap House, after the hired carpenter guy's $1000 job. Hick said he had two helpers.

Hick even labeled the pictures for me, since I DON'T KNOW NOTHIN'! This used to be the living room at the front of Lap House. It's being converted to a bedroom. There's the front door. That inset area is going to be the closet in the bedroom. Hick said the hall by the door/closet area is 36 inches, and past that, it widens to over four feet. You can see the framing for the bedroom door.

This isn't even a whole wall! Just shims so the wall is not off-kilter when the drywall is put up. It's a 1920s house, and not everything was square. This will be the new living room. You can see a sliver of the hall that leads to the front door. The white door is the entrance to the existing front bedroom.

The Viking gas stove from the rich guy's renovation is currently parked in the laundry closet that just got framed in. This is on the back wall of the house. In the living room.

It doesn't look like $1000 worth of work to me, seeing as how Hick bought the materials. But I suppose skilled help costs more than Hick's regular helpers.

Hopefully Hick will stick to his plan to work on both houses each day. I haven't gotten any new pictures as proof. These were from Sept 22, and work not even done by Hick. By the time you read this it will be at least Thursday. Another "work" week gone. The (three-day) weekends are devoted to the SUS2.5.