TEXT HELL

Punishment for donating money

Text Hell

Punishment for donating money

by Andrew Meblin, copyright December 22, 2023

About four years ago, maybe longer, or not, I donated money to the campaign of a human seeking a seat in the House of Representatives representing the people of a district in Southern California. The name was Young Kim. I liked the idea of a rapper reppin’ Cali, yo? Turns out it was a woman of Korean ethnicity, not a rapper. But that was not the problem. What steams me is that, to this day, I am on a list. A list of suckers.

Daily I receive text messages from politicians and those wannabe politicians usually asking me for money. I write usually because the messages I receive aren’t always an obvious cap-in-hand ask for money: sometimes these pose questions that try to motivate me to click on a link. I don’t click. The text text (see what I did there?) is such that it often starts out as a lie, to whit, “Hey, It’s Ron DeSantis.” No, Ron DeSantis did NOT write and send that text. Some machine did, operated by someone paid by a company, paid by the DeSantis campaign, maybe, but Ron didn’t send it. Wrong DeSantis.

Once I got a message from “Trump Majority Blitz,” with the following, “There was talk about you in the GOP inner circle yesterday, Andrew, and it wasn’t good…” That comes very close to intimidation, no? That was sent before the 2022 election, so in the photo of Trump he is still smiling.

Smiling

Not smiling

Another time the text message was ridiculously false; “Andrew, we didn’t expect this from YOU! You’re the ONLY person to not sign the petition to DROP ALL CHARGES against Trump.” I bet Joe Biden didn’t sign it.

I fantasize about getting Trump’s REAL phone number and sending him messages, “Hey! Doofus! I don’t CLICK!” If I did (click) I am sure that I would be then pitched for a donation. But I don’t click, ok? And politicians take heed; I will delete your text messages, and disinvite you to my birthday party. But worse, I will BLOCK YOUR NUMBER!

Here are the steps I take with each and every text message:

1.     Click on the text.

2.     Click on number showing at the top of the screen.

3.     Click on “info” button, in the fourth tile of the row below the number.

4.     Scroll up and click on “Block this Caller.” This is displayed in red because, danger!

5.     This brings up “Block Contact,” also in red! Click on that.

6.     Then click on the left arrow-like mark in the upper left of the screen.

7.     Click on “Done.”

8.     Click again on the left arrow-like mark in the upper left of the screen.

9.     Swipe with your thumb on the text message, which reveals the red garbage can icon.

10.  Click the red garbage can icon.

11.  This brings up three choices; “Delete,” Delete and Report Junk,” or “Cancel.”

12.  Click “Delete and Report Junk.”

Steps my arthritic thumbs are required to take just because I wanted to participate in democracy

I know what you’re thinking. You wonder why I don’t reply with the word “Stop” to get the sender to cease texting me. I did that in the past, but I worried that doing so just confirms to them that there is a real person at the other end, and they might remove me from that list, but it will place me on a dozen other lists, “Live sucker on this one, guys.”

I want to communicate this to the political parties, but I sure as sh*t don’t want them to know where I am. Someone who knows math told me how many telephone numbers I will have to block, but I forgot that number. Maybe it was a million. I will die before I succeed in living junk-text-free.

***************

Now for some phun:

Anyone care to guess what is going on here? I promise a prize to the person who correctly GUESSES what these people are doing. NO CHEATING.

Be specific