Scattered Pieces 8

I work from home, and sometimes it gets boring and lonely, so recently I’ve taken to answering those Indian scammer calls on my headset and dragging them out as long as possible with increasingly bizarre antics. Today I had one where the scammer was trying to get me to buy gift cards at a store and send him the codes so he could allegedly send me cash. I don’t even know what the scam was supposed to be—it was really poorly thought out on their end—but I played along. After about 30 minutes of pretending I was incredibly incompetent—having all sorts of difficulty starting my car and getting to the store—I told the guy I had arrived at Walmart. You could hear the excitement in his voice—this was a man who clearly had very little success doing this. I even played sound effects from YouTube videos I had open in a bunch of tabs so he could hear me parking, entering the store, etc. “Yes, sir! Very good! Cannot wait—I can send you the cash!” Then things got interesting. I told him to hold on while I got the cards, explaining that I didn’t have any money. He became a bit concerned and said, “Please, sir, just buy the cards.” Then, as loud as I could, right in his ear: “EVERYONE GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND! I’VE GOT A GUN!” plays YouTube clip of people screaming The guy lost it: “Oh my God, sir, what are you doing?! Oh my God! Oh my God! Please stop!” Too late. For about five minutes, I narrated a high-stakes robbery, complete with me losing my cool, gunshot sound effects, audio clips of women screaming, etc. It was the most harrowing five minutes of this poor guy’s life, as he kept telling me to stop and just give him the card numbers quickly. When it was over, I made sure to let him know that I got the cards and killed anyone who tried to stop me—just as he had asked. Clearly nervous he would somehow be implicated in this robbery-turned–mass murder he facilitated overseas, he emphatically told me that he only wanted me to buy the cards and did not ask me to do any of this. I ended with a police siren and me pretending to run away before screaming, playing the gunshot sound effects again, and abruptly ending the call. I honestly don’t know why he stayed on the call as long as he did, considering how panicked he sounded at various points—maybe he thought I’d still give him the card numbers and PINs after the botched robbery—but I can’t imagine Mr. Patel will be scamming anyone for some time. So—how did you guys spend your workday?

When my son's lips turned blue, my wife and I had to pause and ask ourselves: can we afford the ambulance? No Kansas family should ever have that conversation.

Working on a project. Parents, what is the best parenting advice you can give about raising kids?

As an Iranian watching this rescue mission unfold, I was praying the American pilot would make it out alive, not just for him, but so the Islamic Republic could not use him as a bargaining chip or claim some twisted “victory.” At the same time, I felt a deep envy. Your government sent elite special forces, million-dollar aircraft, and moved heaven and earth to bring one American home. No hesitation. No excuses. In Iran, the regime uses human shields and recruited child soldiers to clear minefields during the Iran-Iraq war. They treat their own people like disposable tools. They are now recruiting child soldiers as we speak. The Islamic Republic has zero regard for human life. That’s the brutal difference. One side risks everything to save their own. The other sacrifices their own to stay in power. This hits hard when you have lived under both realities.