They Are Watching You

I had a somewhat disconcerting phone call yesterday. I ordered a new computer from a reliable Internet site last week, and yesterday someone from India (naturally) calls me up to tell me that, since I had it shipped to my private mail box instead of my house, they had to ask a couple of questions to verify my identity. For my protection, of course. To prevent fraud.

So she tells me to let her know if I recognize any names in a list she's going to read off. I recognized the third name on the list: It was my wife, but the last name was the same as her ex-husband's. They have been divorced for 26 years! But apparently that doesn't matter. She still in my credit account under the name of her former husband.

Then she asked me to identify an address: 119 Lone Oak Road. I could identify it, but it also took me aback, since that was my parents' address, and they both died over 20 years ago.

So it's all there somewhere, in a big computer file. Everything about you, going back for years and years. Privacy is an illusion.

Even that "permanent record" they always threatened me with back in school is probably out there somewhere. Now that ought to make some interesting reading. But I hope it doesn't really exist: with all the "blowing stuff up" shenanigans that I pulled in my youth (firecracker pipe-bombs, long-twine time bombs, exploding hydrogen balloons, etc), it probably would get me on a bunch of terrorist watch-lists.

And I really hope no one dredges up the unfortunate incident involving the trained cormorant, the bishop's wife and the kangaroo in the steam bath...