If it isn’t Nigerian princes trying to get a slice of Mum’s ever-dwindling pension funds, it’s scammers with a more sinister purpose. Maybe Jeff and I have the right way of dealing with it: never answering our phones . . . unless of course it’s builders calling from Melbourne about materials (for Jeff) or vets calling about another rescue goat/pig/sheep that needs a home (for me). If you never answer the unknown number, you never get a scary authoritarian Big Brother telling you that you’re late on your ATO payment and they’re about to send the federal police around to arrest you.
One day, Mum shakily mentioned to us, ‘The phone man just called me and told me there was a problem with my internet . . .’
Oh no, I thought, anticipating the direction of this conversation. ‘Just breathe, Mum, and tell me what happened.’ I could tell she was already suffering PTSD. ‘He said there was a problem with my internet and he made me do all these things to the modem and then he said none of it was working so he asked me to download some new software and —’
‘You didn’t?’ Jeff said, as though this was the first time something like this had happened.
‘I was so flustered,’ Mum said, ‘and he kept repeating himself and I couldn’t do it and I was so frustrated with myself . . .’
‘You didn’t think for a second it might be a scam and the guy definitely wasn’t calling from the phone company?’
‘No!’ She sounded horrified. ‘I couldn’t download what he wanted me to and then he said he’d have to call me back.’
It was one of the rare times my parents’ technological ineptitude probably saved them. If he’d been able to make them download something it would’ve been a disaster. Emptied bank accounts, destitution, moving in with Jeff and me . . .
‘Good on you, Jude,’ Dad said, because he would never have fallen for any scam.
My parents don’t even have internet on their phone account, yet it would never occur to them to ask why their phone company is calling to tell them there is a problem with the line? It did make me question my approach. Maybe by being the one who always sorts out their wi-fi issues, who calls their phone provider to cancel phone charges to Azerbaijan, who blocks spam callers’ numbers for them, I’ve left them unprepared to face the real world and its new dangers. Maybe being less jaded with the advancement of technology (and cyber-crime) has expanded their empathy and trust, opening them up to such scams? And maybe, when I eventually lose touch with technology, it will only be a matter of time until I too fall victim to one? Or maybe they really are just soft targets?
‘Can I just ask,’ I added for a little drama, ‘you didn’t give him your credit card number, Medicare number, date of birth and passport number just because he “sounded so convincing”?’
‘You little shit!’ Mum batted away, using this quirky term of affection to acknowledge that she knew I was taking the mickey out of her.
‘Honestly, Jude,’ I said. ‘“Hi, your phone line is down. Can you please forward us payment for twelve grand? We need it to upgrade the local network.” “Oh sure, can I just send you cash?”’
‘Well, I would never send cash!’
‘Really?’
Of course, as luck would have it, after the failure of her phone company impersonator to rob her of her pension deposit, she got an actual phone call from her phone provider offering a new kind of plan that would have actually saved them money. But forewarned is forearmed and Mum politely told them she was happy enough with things as they were and hung up on them mid-sentence.
I’ve lobbied my local member to draft a new law whereby phone companies will be billed annually for the health impact they have on anyone over sixty. Every time a senior has to deal with a phone provider, a heart rate monitor will activate in their handset, and for every beat over a sitting-still pulse, the company will pay them compensation. Jude will make squillions.
Attention Twilight Waters Residents:
This is a reminder that macrame lessons will be conducted in the Betsy Higginbotham Craft Room tomorrow from 11.05am. This week’s project is plant potholders.
Please note that plants are not allowed to be hung in communal areas due to health and safety concerns.
Thank You,
Management
FOUR
The Devil’s Workshop
As we drive past the place where Mum regularly worships, I come to the shocking realisation that I have forgotten to put the child safety lock on her door. It’s highly feasible she’ll hurl herself from the moving vehicle, kamikaze-style, roll through the building’s front door and not stop somersaulting until she reaches the Cleopatra machine, her pointer finger poised to press the bet button.
But my fears over Jude’s leap of desperation appear unfounded today as she instead gives three lonely fingernail taps on the window.
It’s impossible for Mum to just verbally refer to something she’s looking at; she must also tap a fingernail several times against her window as we pass it. Usually, it’s seven times – a hell of a lot of tapping for the average car ride. Burnt-out cars are a particular focus of hers; tapping to point out another find down a seldom-used side street, accompanied by a series of tsks. Otherwise, it’s houses for sale, new shops, closing-down shops, road extensions or where so-and-so is buried. A particularly fascinating point of interest can result in up to twenty taps. Tapping isn’t just restricted to car trips either – if you’re in the living room and she wants to point out a new plant, the house window is also tapped generously from the inside.
Mum says, ‘They’ve put in three brand new machines this week.’ The longing in her voice is palpable.
‘Even more machines to gobble up our disappearing nest egg,’ Dad says flatly, deafness miraculously overcome for the moment.
Mum’s one, true passion – the thing that fills her heart with the most joy, more than anything else on earth – is monotonously pressing a button on an annoyingly loud machine in a darkened room of her local club. This enticing and mysterious contraption offers great, unknowable things – riches you can only ever dream of. And dreams are all they remain.
‘Have you still got your cunning kick, Dad?’ I ask, to slightly change the topic. Dad has always kept a secret stash of money, usually winnings from bets on the horses (which, in his mind, is a more noble type of gambling than the pokies).
‘I might do Skeet, I might. But I don’t gamble anymore. Your mother does more than enough of that for the both of us.’
I hear a groan from Jude over the back.
‘Can’t you go back to full-time work, Pete, so Jude can keep trying for a jackpot?’
Luckily, Dad doesn’t hear me.
* * *
We pass a service station on the way towards Branxton and I could set my watch by what comes next. One second, two . . .
‘Jeez that petrol’s dear, darl,’ Mum beats Dad in today’s competition, her fingernail tapping seven times on the window to punctuate the sight.
Per usual, my ears are sensitive to any noise that can (and should) be stopped.
