I wouldn't say I was smart, just made it a point to not be naive and gullible. I think I started on that path around 5 years when Grandma took me to town one Christmas to sit on Santa's lap.
When told what we would be doing that day I was all excited about going to the pop. 3000 town of Fullerton Nebraska. We went to the high school gymnasium which was set up with hay bales ribbons and other stuff to make it seem festive. A huge line of kids so I got in line and waited my turn.
When I sat on Santa's lap I noticed right off he had a fake beard and fake moustache. I don't even remember saying much at all, just tried to carry on as if I believed so maybe I could get something out of this deal?
I got off his lap and was given a bag of roasted peanuts, some broken bits of peanut brittle, a candied popcorn ball and an orange. So, I got something out of it but was feeling creeped out that adults would pull this fake stuff on me. In my mind, everyone telling us this was Santa was somehow guilty and suspect.
Over the next ten years I became very aware of adults lying or just hiding the truth, or giving false excuses for not being fair.
What really hurt was watching family finances being given away to charity or watching my Grandparents who raised me constantly being taken in by one scam after another.
This went on up until their deaths around 2006. 1983 was year they dumped $50,000.00 of our small business profits into a scam telecommunications company. Also the year they refused to give me a bonus on record profits I had helped bring in. 1990 Grandma decided to recoup their losses on that old silver deal by cashing in their ingots. She dropped off the ingots to be appraised and returned the following morning to find the shop had been cleaned out. No receipt, no name of the proprietor and no forwarding address. She was so ashamed she wouldn't go to the police. She did however keep secret that she had saved back a couple boxes of ingots.
2005 she had a heroin addict help her move them from the garage to her bedroom. He came back later, took the ingots and had his friend rip the safe from the floor. Ingots were stored on the floor while earlier she had left the key to the safe in a dresser drawer. Her heroin addict made off with cash from the safe so I advised her to put in a combination number and keep the key on her person. That's when the heroin addict had his dealer return to break in and rip the safe out of the floor. At that point I kind of gave up. I told her she really shouldn't be having money anywhere but in a bank account and then cut up any debit cards.
This is sad. I've never met such gullible people.
LOL. Imagine how it must feel growing up in such a family. One grifter or another showing up to dazzle your grandparents with razzle dazzle smooth talk and you're the asshole who has to dump cold water in their face to cool them off. It never works and you always end up being hated.
Then when the grifters have made off with the cash over your heated objections they look at you with the stink eye and how dare you say, "I told you so.".
My own meth addicted sister was another grifter, but what really annoyed me was that she was clumsy at it, used the same tricks over and over and STILL got over on them. It was baffling and aggravating. Infuriating.
She'd abandon a husband, end up homeless, be taken in and provided a car and soon have a boyfriend or husband and it would all fall apart in a year or so. The car would be wrecked or "stolen" but she wouldn't have insurance or the car would turn out to have been given to a boyfriend who was also usually on drugs as well. This cycle would repeat every few years.
So, back in 2005 she tried to get my 97 year old grandmother to drive down from Yuba city area to Lancaster Ca to pick up her. WTF? First off, she had a rental home in San Bernardino paid for by the government. She was on aid so what was she doing out there in the desert? And where was her small van? Oh, she had abandoned her rental and taken her four kids on a road trip to visit grandma. Ok, but where's the van. Turns out she had left it on the side of the freeway. Why? It had run out of gas. She admitted she had $200.00 on her but forgot to get fuel. WTF? So, I located a gas station near her and had her go over there. One of the attendants took her out to the vehicle location and turns out the van had vanished. Police didn't have it and highway patrol had not seen it or had it towed. Under questioning she admitted she had left it unlocked with keys in the ignition. Huge sigh. Why? Why? Why? So I contacted her inlaws in Corona Ca. and had them drive out to pick her and the kids up and return them to the rental property with no vehicle as obviously the van had been stolen. She never reported the theft to the police. Oh, and why had she ended up in Lancaster? Oh, she was lost and didn't know how to read a map. "You know I don't read maps" was her excuse. Me: "Really, then don't go on long trips!".
She stayed put for another year or so and then in 2006 Grandpa died. She didn't attend the funeral. 2007 I am visiting Grandma at their country home near Yuba City and walking up the long drive way to the hilltop where Grandparents had their home comes my sister. Dirty, unkempt, wearing really nasty clothes, with hair matted and filthy. I told my Grandmother to order her off the property. A meth addict is just too dangerous to have around. Grandma said, "If I don't help her she'll die". Me: "Then let her DIE!". Grandma ordered me to leave so I went home to my place, called my aunt up and told her what was going on.
They spent $30,000.00 on attorney to help my sister regain custody of her children, doctor visits and get her a new car. My aunt took my sister up to Oregon to her home with her four children. Ungrateful and resentful children who were upset at once more being uprooted from the place they had been living.
My sister waited until the support checks came for the children then cashed in all the checks, left with the children, dumped them back off at the home where they had been living and traded the car for meth. In 30 days she completely undid all the help she had been given. Grandma died a few weeks later of heart failure. So yes, the scamming and gullibility continued right up to the time of death.
Last I heard of my sister she was convicted of assaulting some random kid because the kid insulted her.
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