You’d think at my age I would have seen every trick in the book. I look at people who give away their life savings to some shyster and think, that would save a lot of baby moose from rifle-toting Alaskan governors. Give early, give often.

Yesterday, I received a yellow post card in the mail that said “important notice,” so I knew that it must have some Earth-shattering significance. I immediately called the toll free number and gave my credit card information to the nice woman who claimed to be from my college alumni association. Never mind that the return address was in Virginia, and my alma mater is in Seattle.

I never received the email link from them, and when I tried to call them back, they wanted me to oprime numero dos para Español, then cheerily announced that they were closed for the day, contrary to the hours of operation printed on the card. I sooo did not want to cancel my credit card and make up some story to the bank about huffing too much glue while watching reruns of Survivor. I’m sure they get that all the time.

Actually, the man at the bank was very nice and didn’t give me a hard time for parking my brains in a red zone. Mom promised me that one day I would be older and wiser. At least she got one of them right.

Today I’m putting all the scammers out there on notice. All you’re going to get out of me is my name, rank, and social security number.