New Normal: If It's Free, It Ain't for Me (standard:humor, 897 words)
Author: Godspenman	Added: Mar 13 2021	Views/Reads: 1201/803	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
God will never scam me.

Once when I wore a younger man's suit I would take anything free. I
assumed it was my right to get something free. 

Then I had a conversation with my grandfather. If anybody knew how to
squeeze a buffalo out of a nickel, it was my grandfather. But you 
couldn't trick him by offering him something free. 

He said to me, "Son, if it's free, it ain't for me." 

Explaining that, he said, "For everything free, somebody, somewhere has
to pay for it." 

At the time, I just chuckled and fluffed off this advice. After all, if
I'm offered something free I'm going to jump and even dance to get it. 

Getting something free wasn't too bad, and I tried to be careful about
some of these free offers. But that was back in the day when there was 
no Internet or websites. Oh, those were the good old days. 

I would see a free offer in the newspaper and immediately cut it out and
send it in and wait for that free offer to come. I must say I did get a 
lot of free things back in those days, but if I would examine them, 
they weren't worth the postage I used to send for them. 

Also, there were free offers on TV programs at the time. I applied for
as many as I could get. 

But then came the Internet, and everything has changed. 

When I first started seeing these "free" offers, I jumped at the
opportunity. After all, it was the Internet, and you didn't have to 
spend any money on postage. So I was in my glory. After all, you can 
trust the Internet. 

I got free pens, a free hat, a free notebook, and boy, it goes on and on
and on. All I had to do was send my name and address, and everything 
was fine. 

My fun was just beginning. 

The change was that now I could get something free if I just paid the
shipping. I didn't think that was too bad, I was just thinking about 
what I was getting for free. 

Not being too sophisticated about how this works, I entered my name,
address, phone number, and then [drumroll] my credit card number. After 
all, I was getting something free, and I only had to pay the shipping. 

I know I'm an old country boy that's very naïve along these lines. I
wouldn't rob anybody, so I don't think anybody would rob me. It goes 
both ways. 

Pretty soon, those sunny days were overcome by a dark cloud of rain and
thunderstorms. 

In checking my bank account, I noticed some suspicious withdrawals on my
account. I thought maybe I bought something I had forgotten about, so I 
didn't give it much thought. 

Then one day, I noticed in my bank account a withdrawal of $1,699, which
took place in California. I was in California, but that was 20 years 
ago. How I was able to purchase something in California for such an 
amount of money, I don't know. 

Then the next day, a withdrawal of $3,699, which took place in Texas. 

I rode my snorting horse to the bank to see what in the world was going
on. 

“Have you ever,” the banker said to me, “ordered something online and
used your credit card?” 

"I don't order anything online, particularly that expensive." 

She looked at my account very carefully and then look back at me, “Have


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