They’re baaaack!
Back in the day I used to indulge in verbal sparring with spammers who would call me on occasion, usually involving strange women claiming they’d met me in some random drinking establishment where I’d apparently left my card or some other BS, but they’ve left me alone for the last several years. I thought surely they’d learned their lesson and moved on to more fruitful pursuits such as life coaches or just Not Being a Jerk. Alas, as I get older I might be once again in their sights, because I got a call this morning on my way to work from an unlisted number. Usually I ignore these, but hey, I was enjoying a moment of calm in which I wasn’t scrambling to get homework done before it was due, so I answered.
“Pardon me, is this TC Lin?”
“That depends, who’s asking?” I answered, daring to hope some 2015-era Hamilton-esque shenanigans might ensue.
“This is the pharmacy at Taitung Veteran’s Hospital,” they said, dashing my (admittedly unlikely) bar-related hopes. “Someone came here with your ID card looking to pick up some medicine, so we decided to check by calling.”
Now, I am seldom in Taitung (alas), and I’ve never been to that hospital, so this was already fairly unlikely. But I decided to play along with the bit. “What meds, exactly?”
“Anti-depressants, that kind of thing.”
Ya know, I could use some of those, I thought of saying, but…no. “What did this person look like?” I asked instead.
“Middle-aged, a little thick, short hair.” So far, so good.
“Was he, uh, ethnically Chinese?” (“Huaren” 華人, which doesn’t really translate in English, it just denotes the ethnicity of most Taiwanese people rather than political designations.)
A pause. They probably don’t get this question a lot. “Well…yeah?” he said.
“Couldn’t have been me, then. I’m not ethnically Chinese.”
“So are you saying that it wasn’t your ARC?” I had to admire how quickly the scammer adapted to the new circumstances, my ID card was now an Alien Resident Certificate simply because I said I wasn’t ethnically Chinese.
“I don’t even have an ARC,” I said. Checkmate! I thought. But no, they kept going even as we went further off script.
“Ah ha! So you’re an illegal alien then?” I couldn’t help but laugh at this sudden accusation, and the caller became indignant, his tone harsh.
“How can you laugh at a time like this! Why don’t you answer? What are you playing at?” I could ask you the same thing, I thought, but this was getting boring, so I hung up. Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have spent even the little time I did on the line with the scammers, and hopefully they will put my number on their Do Not Bother With This Dude’s Ish list, but these times are full of change and woe and sometimes I just need a laugh.
