There is what is perhaps an urban myth that patrol officers write more traffic tickets at the beginning of the month and at the end of the month. The reasoning behind these beliefs is that in the case of the beginning of the month, cops want to get their “quota” met early; at the end of the month, they are playing catch-up so as to meet the “quota.” Police departments, of course, deny there are any quotas. I don’t know and frankly, I don’t care. I try not to speed for the most part.

But speaking of quotas, I wondered if another profession was trying to meet their month-end quota yesterday. I was sitting in the lobby while Bill was at his first physical therapy appointment. My phone dinged, indicating I had gotten a email message. Being quite bored, and afraid to pick up one of the PT’s magazines, I decided to check my messages. I admit that I looked longingly at the magazines because the Us Weekly featured a story about Ellen Degeneres who seems so nice but indications are that she might be more like the Wicked Witch of the West than the Good Witch of the North. Nothing is certain in 2020. Doctors’ offices and apparently physical therapy offices are the only places where I can catch up on the REAL news, like Ellen’s bad temper and photos of Nicki Minaj at nine months pregnant and nearly naked. But I stayed strong, knowing those magazines were covered in COVID germs.

Most of my emails were from Crate & Barrel (who are my best friends since I bought my defective Kitchenaid mixer from them) and my friends at Next Door who are all up in arms about nighttime car racing. But one of them was a really friendly email:

It was signed by a man who’s name I will withhold. I thought it was so nice of him to ask how I was, since no one at either Crate & Barrel or Next Door seem to care. His lack of interest in capitalizing the letter “I” was somewhat disconcerting since his name was not e.e. cummings.

The biggest problem with the email was that it was a name totally unfamiliar to me. Knowing full well that this was a scam, and being crabby because I couldn’t read about Ellen, I came THIS CLOSE to responding with something along the lines of you can take your nephew’s gift card and shove it where the sun don’t shine. I really was very close.

And then I stopped myself because: a. That would be very mean; and b. I assume if I had responded, I would be put on some scary phishing list or my cell phone would blow up. It took great restraint.

But it wasn’t a half hour later that I got a text from my sister Bec, who said I just got a message saying if I don’t call and verify my Social Security number, they’re going to issue an arrest warrant and put me behind bars. So if you don’t hear from me…..

So that’s the reason I’m wondering if the Social Networking Bad Guys are also trying to meet a month-end quota, just like the cops. If their quota involves a “there’s a sucker born every minute” response, Bec and I were no help yesterday.