Stop! Look And Consider!

No. 9 of 31 -- Thermometer series

Our great blog drive is a thing of beauty — I hope you see it and that you're rolling in the flowers here, your happiness our only concern, and will get inside for one sweet joyride.

I’m exercising a bit of privilege today by citing a guy I briefly knew, Roy S. Who drove drunk through a forest in Arkansas, swerving to avoid wolves and going off the cliff. He was quite a guy, that I never ever saw again. But my memory is clear enough that when we parted he was on his way to a whorehouse. Note: If your name is Roy S., or worse, Mrs. Roy S., this was a totally different guy.

The ride I had with Roy was misery at the time, but joy when I got out, and now that it’s been almost 50 years ago, a happy memory. I use it as a reminder: However bad my life is, whatever terrible slimy messes I go through, whatever diseases threaten, I survived Roy S., I can live through anything. And likewise I'm optimistic with the blog drive: I’m shooting for nothing less than every single person on earth subscribe, read or comment on my blog. You say you have a Grandma with cancer and a day to live? Sign her up. Bring her on board. But in the unlikely event that everyone doesn't subscribe, I will survive.

So I wanted to share that with you. Then, having got your attention with a collage of attention-getting men coupled with one bold Rosy the Riveter type of woman, to point you in the direction you need to go. Getting involved here, reading, commenting, and persuading your friends on the same joyful tasks. Tasks? More a lifestyle. Lifestyle? More a way of life. Way of life? More a lifestyle again. That’s how I see it, like an old rug that's never clean. It's hung in a tree, I go out everyday about noon and beat the crap out of it. Might not be a great rug, but it's cheaper than buying new.

Not everyone’s so lucky. But you can hitch your wagon here. Say you’re standing by the side of the road and you want a ride, and you’re brave enough to get in the first swerving car that comes along. That could be me or it could be Roy S. In this case, assume it’s me, normally a good driver. But I want to test you and your tolerance and your ability to survive and your confidence. Will you get in? Yes, you will. Or no, you won’t.

When you see this blog, do you think of it like everyone else, a passing thing, a bit of fluff, maybe some guy out to scam you? Some of my native bravery is a thing of the past, so that was a passing thing. And I tend to see even the most serious blogs as “So what.” It’s a big world and I have limited time, that’s not for me. But whatever else I think, number one is avoid scams, my constant fear. Think about it, would someone who has that as a constant fear of scams ever scam anyone? No, I wouldn’t.

I had no trust of Roy S., but I needed a ride and there were wolves. You can trust me, you can get in. Let’s shoot those thermometers to the moon! Let’s see them rear back and blow their tops all the way to Mars! Let the world know, We will not sit by sedately till we die. We will (metaphorically) drive together through the forest drunk as skunks, and nothing -- neither the wolves nor anything else -- will eat us till we’re happily ensconced in that comfortable (metaphorical) whorehouse, a life of beautiful pleasure and fulfilling relationships, the end of the line.

Money Mules, Come Home

That's it! It's the end of May and I'm fed up with my money mules. They ran off with my money and that's it. No more!

I'd heard the idea bandied around a few times: "You have money to invest, why settle for a minimal gain in the market or something as volatile as gold, vintage cars, or Pokemon cards? Put your trust in human ingenuity, the creative drive, in short, money mules. Trust them! What's the worst that could happen? They can't be all bad. Load up each mule with $100,000, send them forth, and see how much money they bring back. Give them a small percentage and keep the rest."

Yes, I fell for the free steak dinner and seminar. Which so far has cost me $20 million. That's one expensive cut of meat... Now, where the mules are, I don't know. There's a rumor going round the coffee shop that whoever handed out the steaks, or whoever's behind them, loaded the mules in the back of a covered truck and headed off for the Northwest Territories. Meaning we'll never see them again. And after I wasted a month looking out the window...

Still, if they would only come home. At least one, let's say, who could give me a line on the others. I'd love to get my hands on them, to ring their duplicitous little necks, then kick them to the curb, then tar and feather them, and -- you get the idea. Anything but welcome them back with a brotherly kiss. Although, I suppose, if they had a good excuse for their absence, I might listen. Especially if they had a sack of money.

It's possible it's all on the up and up. And that my money mules might still be coming home. Maybe they'll show up all innocent, telling me rightfully, "You didn't give us a deadline. We were making so much money we thought we might as well gather up as much as possible for you." I'd love to hear that, but, really, can life work out as fine as that? Surely not. They've surely seen their advantage; they have my money so they've run. But really, what if? It'd be great to think they were really that industrious, and on my behalf! Although it's much more likely they're just scoundrels, profligates.

I feel like taking a crowbar... Running it up my sleeve... Or maybe down the leg of my pants... A crowbar on each leg... And finding them. I suddenly find they're in a particular nightclub in Boise, let's say, and I show up, a crowbar down each leg. I'm listening to their conversation, their laughing, their boisterousness in buying each other drinks at my expense, and I make the sudden reveal: "It's me!" Suddenly with crowbars flying like nunchucks, heads colliding, screaming, the whole works. "Cheat me out of my money, will ya?!"

Until I get a line on them, frankly what choice do I have but to just forget it? Live and learn. Boise, Helena, Seattle, somewhere up there in that godforsaken country. Let me get my hands on them! Or let me forget the whole thing... It'd be great if just one of them came home, or two. I'd get them separated and grill them. Of course they'd be lying, but I might ferret out some truth by splitting the difference in their stories.

Until I get more answers, the whole money mules thing is done.

Poor Spirits Aggrieved by Shady Podiatrists

Some time back, after hearing of so many terrible goings-on, I decided at long last to put my foot down and seek information on the shady trade known as podiatry and the heels that do it. I've taken certain steps in that direction and I'm prepared to give at least a preliminary report.

So far it's just me doing the work. But I'm hoping that by getting the word out I can put together a team. I'm thinking of calling it TAPS, like on the ghost hunting show, but this time with TAPS standing for Those Asshole PodatristS.

In the past I've written about one other very shady industry, the whole fly-by-night carpet biz. They sell you carpet, you walk on it, it comes apart at the seams, and then they're gone. Now I'm revealing the truth of podiatry. In short, podiatrists are the fly-by-night carpet biz of the whole stinking medical world.

I've discovered one very interesting detail of these guys. Podiatrists always marry their receptionist, with the receptionist being the only employee, since she can't be forced to testify against him. That would be a concern if anyone could ever catch these guys. But they tend to set up shop, then disappear in the night. Probably the ideal situation for them, from their point of view, would be to set up in the back of a carpet store! They could all vacate together...

My work so far has been to visit empty office space where podiatrists once were and have now left. I've gone to a few of these places. I've used my natural sensitivity and intuition to communicate with the spirits of departed patients. It's not the case, however, that every one of these patients actually died. But in the agony of their treatment, they all left something of their spirit energy within those unfortunate walls.

Now, being only one man, and without the government's surveillance expertise, I don't know any of the actual patients by name. So as a workaround I play the odds. "Is the aggrieved spirit of Ted here? Calling Ted." Nothing but silence. I went through a list of common names. "Al? Mary? Clyde?" But there was nothing. Silence. Finally I hit on one: "Phoebe?" At that, I suddenly heard rustling, right where the chair had been! Then the telltale fragrance of foot odor hit my nose, and I knew ... Phoebe's in the house!

"Phoebe, I know you suffered heinously here. Flick your big toenail if it was an ingrown toenail ... treated without anesthesia." I was spooked, really taken aback, when she not only flicked it but let out a bloodcurdling yell. "So the pain hasn't lessened at all? Flick it again if that's a yes." I heard the same flick, and an even more bloodcurdling yell. "OK," I said, trying to nail down certain conclusions, "Flick it once more if your podiatrist was a son of a bitch, then flick it a second time if you wish you would've simply suffered with it the rest of your life than to seek out his worthless treatment." I waited as she no doubt pondered whether she could endure the pain. Then, flick, [SCREAM], followed by flick, [SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER].

I poked around the office a bit more. Under some rubble I found a poster of a foot, a cutaway view, with the skin, muscle, and bones on display. You'd think this would've been nothing more than artwork from a supply house. But I'm thinking it might've been a view of an actual patient's foot, possibly operated on in this very office. I called out to Phoebe, who verified for me that it was indeed her foot, this time with three nail flicks and three more bloodcurdling screams, growing in intensity as her pain increased exponentially.

Finally, just to satisfy my curiosity as to how the podiatrist and his wife are able to disappear during raids, I tapped around for a hideout. It didn't take long to find a cut out section of the floor, covered with a removable door. Obviously there had been a switch and wires on the wife's desk to unlock it. Pulling away the boards, I found a room big enough for various provisions and space enough to sleep if need be. Very clever!

But that wasn't all! I let out a scream of my own and nearly threw up when I saw a shelf with actual foot parts, severed toes, bone, curdled muscle, the whole bit! As I screamed, Phoebe's spirit was again with me, herself screaming. As I poked at some of the bits of a bloody toe on the shelf, her screams became deafening. This time I knew! She didn't need to flick her toenail for me to know ... some of this mess was hers!

The Valentine's Flower Racket Morticians Run

I'm getting the word out there early on something I suspect, way before Valentine's Day, because I'm hoping to get widespread attention on this matter. I'd call it something of a scam. At least that's my suspicion, and I've always had a pretty good success rate in these things. At the very least it should be investigated, and when found to be true, be exposed, shut down, and left dead in its tracks. Prosecute!

My suspicion -- and I'm pretty sure it's more than that, it's something factual -- is that there's a huge racket being run by unscrupulous morticians. The racket goes something like this: Starting around October or November, they start "syphoning off" flowers from their funerals, then keep them in cold storage till just before Valentine's Day. Then they are sold everywhere, like to florists looking for something cheap to help their profit margin.

The big problem as I see it is that those flowers were purchased by well-meaning families and aggrieved loved ones, meant solely to honor the dead. They weren't meant to go from hand to hand, then on some black market, only to end up, maybe purchased by the same people as tokens of love on Valentine's Day! Of course the flowers are the property of the original purchasers, whose intent was that they would make festive a memorial service, then the grave-site.

You know what I should do? I ought to go nosing around a funeral home. I could show up during a funeral, then slip into the back room and watch through the curtains. While everyone else's eyes are bleary from tears, I'm wide-eyed and alert. I can see the flowers, what all there is. Then as the mourners file out, I watch for the morticians to start skimming. Plus, I'm listening. "This flower looks great, this one will fetch a pretty penny, I might keep this one for myself," etc. The wife, normally upstairs doing bookkeeping, is the go-between, helping stash away the flowers before anyone notices.

Or, my other plan might be to show up at a funeral home -- have some business cards printed, "Floral Wholesaler" -- and present myself to the mortician. Naturally, I'm looking to cut a deal. The guy's nervous, he hasn't seen me before. But obviously I know more about the scam than the average guy. And I'm flipping a coin. His denials won't hold up, because I'll keep pressing him, telling him, "You either play ball or they'll be buying flowers for your funeral, and I mean full price!" I honestly can play hardball, especially if my sense of justice is riled up, as it is on this issue.

I love the above graphic. I think it really drives the point home. Look at the expression of professional grief on the schmuck's face. It's Valentine's Day, and he's portrayed handing out flowers to sexy women in their underwear, you'd think he could manage a smile. But no, he's a professional frowner, looking a lot like an underpaid, unappreciated butler, so even naked ladies don't move him. Then we have the women themselves. They're not the least bit suspicious why a frowning mortician would be handing them a flower. They're just gung ho for flowers, they don't care where they come from!

But I care. This is the honest to God truth: In the last year I have personally sent two big floral arrangements to people's funerals. You ever do that? It costs a fortune. I bet they were $60 apiece. The last thing I want is to have these damned morticians -- very unethical -- reselling them on Valentine's Day. To me, that's simply wrong.