'Notes on Bloodsuckers', a work-in-progress

1.     Don’t knock on the door and think I’ll answer. If you have a bill I’m supposed to pay, fold it neatly in two and place it under the doormat for my review.

2.     No, I don’t want the ‘free medical alert’ you say you want to send to me, knowing it’s not ‘free’ and that there’s some sort of gimmick involved, especially when I discover you’ve already presented the bill in an unstamped return envelope neatly folded in two and slipped it under my doormat.

3.     Thanks so much for your automated robocall, Stacy! It really meant a lot to me just to hear your voice ring out, “Hi, Brooks…” But then I realized you weren’t really talking to me or with me because when I responded you just kept talking about the ‘amazing free medical alert’ you wanted to send me for the incredible introductory price of only $_______...

4.     A tick will actually suck your blood and make no bones about it, as will a mosquito. Horseflies are slightly more polite but also pack a punch.

5.     Never carry your wallet in your back pocket: spiders are stealthy little critters and will rob you until you become blind.

6.     There’s a man named Harry Burt who first likes to present a bill to me on the internet for services his firm has rendered, and then call me from India or Kuala Lumpur to collect on the bill he’s sending me in the mail. Over the years I’ve grown to like Harry Burt, and admire his tenacity—Harry Burt submits phony bill after phony bill I never pay, knowing they’re phony, each bill, or ‘invoice’ as Harry likes to call them, ends in the decimal points :09 or :99, a sure giveaway to the fictitious quality of the invoice.

7.     Harry Burt has become a sort of legend, a bottom fisher. I once told Harry! that I have no problem with fish, that a fish has never submitted an invoice to me or required that I pay within a 30-day timeframe.

8.     Other bloodsuckers out there are legion! Consumers be on your toes! Never pay an invoice asking for a suspicious amount of money—the decimal points that end in :19 or :27 or :99 are always a tip-off to nefarious bloodsucking human activity.

9.     Never suffer bloodsuckers while lying down.

10.  And there’s no need for you, whether you’re having your blood sucked by yet another mischievous human being or inhuman predator, to become a human thank-you machine when they affix their phony ID NUMBERS  on the phony invoices they’ve just submitted to you.