Saturday, July 26, 2014

How Can I Help?

Thank goodness Jerry called. Apparently, since the last time Microsoft Security called me, there have been quite a number of error messages being sent to their server. Jerry wanted me to know that if I would just cooperate with him, there would be a quick fix to this issue.
Of course, I had to believe Jerry. He knew that I was running a Microsoft computer in my home. Or did he ask that? I hate to sound culturally insensitive, but his rather impressive Middle Eastern accent made some of his questions difficult to understand. Once I was able to make some sense of what Jerry was asking me, I tried very hard to answer him. "What are you seeing on your screen?"
"It looks like Monument Valley. There's some snow on the mountains in the background."
"No, no, no," Jerry sighed. He changed his tack, "Do you see your keyboard?"
"Yes."
"Do you see on the left hand side a key that says C-T-R-L?"
"Yeah," I said helpfully, "What does that button do?"
Jerry pressed on, "Next to that key is one that has what looks like a little flag?"
"Yes. What does that one do?" Now I was very curious.
There was another sigh. I was testing Jerry's patience. "Do you see on the lower left hand corner of your screen a -"
"Hey!" I enthused, "It looks just like that button you had me find a second ago."
From there, it only got more complicated. I was having a hard time following Jerry's directions, and at one point he even had me open up my smart phone. I told him I didn't have a really smart phone, since it didn't connect to the Internet. That's about the time I thought that Jerry had hung up. When I heard something on the line, it didn't sound like English.
"Jerry?"
Another long pause. Another sigh. Jerry was back. "You understand these errors you are sending are making prostitution and human trafficking."
"Wow. That's some kind of error. How does my computer make prostitution and human trafficking?"
The line went dead again. This time, Jerry didn't come back. He had hung up. Now I'll never know how my Microsoft computer is helping to make human trafficking possible. I guess I'll just have to wait for him to call back.

1 comment:

Kristen Caven said...

The creepy thing is that this is a true story!