Quick note AND Life Lesson #467

Just got with the doctor's office. They are leaning towards yet another infection. Won't know for sure until the test results come back. Oh golly gee whiz, more antibiotics, lucky me. I sweat so much last night, my pillow and hair were soaking wet when I woke this morning. So I figured something's not kosher with me.

This is the same doctor who told me a several weeks ago, that I should take a month off, go somewhere nice and just rest. Yeah. Someone doesn't live on Planet Reality. Oh sure, losing my job, my cats, my apartment and all my possessions, so I can take a month's holiday and "get well." That's not going to be stressful for me, nahhh! Right. And, moving on...

I got an e-mail on Saturday, saying that this person, "Mark," liked my writing on my blog so much, that he wanted to publish my stuff in a book. Claimed he was with a small publishing company in the U.K.

Okay, I'm not naive, honest, not anymore anyway. Been jerked around and ripped off, once too often for that. But, the letter was polite, well-written (unlike a lot of those con artists, with poor grammar and bad spelling, trying to pass themselves off as business professionals), so I clicked on the link he gave me. It seemed legit at a casual glance...but, not a lot of info on the webpage--it was a little too pat and generic for me. So, I Google'd a bit, and...nothing. There is no such publishing company in the UK. I have a source--a website that I found, back in my college days, that lists every known publisher in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and NZ, and several other countries, besides. I had to dig to find it, as I didn't remember exactly what the site name was. The ONLY listing, anywhere, that I can find for "Excalibur Publishing," is on the web, and it's a video game company, not a book publisher.

But, armed with this, I went back to the "publishing" house's webpage--just to make sure I got the name right, and that is wasn't some quirky spelling I'd not noticed, or to see if it was listed under another name. Nope, that was the name. And, towards the bottom, in very tiny print--was a button, "getting published."

Turns out, YOU pay them, to publish your book---five hundred pounds (1000 dollars) up front!

I wrote the guy and told him to please remove my e-mail from his mailing list. That if I had a 1000 dollars, I'd be paying off a small debt, buying groceries and a perhaps a couple of clothing items I do need, and saving the rest for a rainy day...of which I seem to have too many of, these days.

I went to the webpage, today---no longer exists! No really, the link no longer works!

LIFE LESSON NUMBER 467:

If it sounds way too good to be true, if someone pops in out of the blue, offering to make your dreams a reality, don't you believe it---someone's just after your money, they don't really give a damn about you.