I trust people. I tend to believe
what they tell me. I’m big on trust. If they tell me they will do something, I
believe them. If they share with me information, I take it as face value. In
short, I’m an idiot.
It
all started with Anna, her real name (go ahead Anna, sue me), who came to the
house to help us with various domestic chores. Within a few days, my wife Ora and
I discovered that a few things were missing, and I went crazy. I DO NOT
misplace things. I may be totally naïve and somewhat of a moron sometimes, but
I’m NOT DISORGANIZED.
First,
my iPhone charger disappeared. This is a
small thing, so against my best judgment, I resigned myself to the fact that I
had probably misplaced it. Then one of my expensive brown Tumi bags
disappeared. I DO NOT misplace Tumi bags. Then it was one of Ora’s skirts. This
went on for a few weeks until Ora and I dared question Anna’s integrity. When
we gently asked Anna if she had seen the missing items, she denied ever seeing them.
We had a thief in our midst and we kept employing her for fear of offending
her. We had reached a new level of stupidity. It took us months of missing
items and lies to realize we had been had.
When
we finally said enough is enough, I warned my friend, who had also employed
Anna. Our friend, in turn, warned her daughter, who warned her husband, who was
home when Anna worked there. The husband was under strict orders not to leave
Anna by herself. When he left her for a minute, Anna stole none other than the
dog’s house before leaving the premises.
For
years we had gardeners who neglected our yard. We did not want to fire them
because they just had a baby, and we felt for them, and they did show remorse
once in a while. These guys had a special talent for driving their lawn mower
over our sprinkler system. Not a single visit went by without me warning them
not to destroy it, to no avail. Occasionally, they would charge us double. We
ignored that. We thought it was an honest mistake. After eight years of secure
employment, and after three hundred warnings, pleas, reminders, and requests to
be more careful, we fired them. The next thing you know we got a bill that was
triple the usual. All of a sudden, after we fire them, they sent us a bill that
included dandruff treatment for our grass, pedicure for our trees and manicure
for our plants. The sprinkler system had been driven over again.
Compared
to the pool guy, the gardeners were beyond reproach. One day Ora and I returned
from the University to find our pool empty. Where did the water go? It was hot,
but 77,000 gallons of water do not just evaporate. Being the handy man that I
am, I immediately reached for the phone. I called the pool guy and asked if he
had visited today. After the affirmative reply I asked if he did something to
empty the pool. “Nothing, just the usual” he said.
Our
pool guy, let’s call him Innocencio, was vehement that somebody else must have
tampered with the pool. I thought I could trust these guys, but something was
fishy. After talking with the owner of the company and pressing the issue, they
told me that I must have done something wrong, that it was my fault. Innocencio
thought nothing of lying. At that moment I remembered that we had installed
security cameras on top of the pool whatchamacallit. I run to the control
panel, re-winded the tape, and could clearly see Innocencio moving a lever to
“empty pool” -- an oversight. There he was, caught on tape, in the act. Oh, the
sweet taste of revenge. After producing the evidence, the company stopped
sending Innocencio to the house and paid for the zillion of gallons required to
fill the pool again.
Strangers, OK, we were fools with strangers sometimes; but friends, that’s another story.
A childhood friend needed some money, and shelter, and a lot of TLC, a lot. He
had just separated from his wife. Ora and I immediately responded to the call,
opening our house and our ears and our wallet. The promise of immediate return
of the money was sufficient for us to lend a nice sum of money so he can pay
the divorce lawyer. The money was eventually returned, but not before my friend
completely disappeared from the face of the earth for several years, and not
before I expressed my indignation, which I’ve come to cultivate since coming to
Miami. Thank you Miami, nowhere else could I have grown out of my innocence so
fast. Now I’m fully ready for a Trump presidency.
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