but will not just come to you

This is part of a postcard that was in my mailbox when we got back from a short vacation.

Normally when I get bilingual mail, the English is acceptable and the Spanish is deplorable. In this case it was pretty much the reverse.

So... money has been "located in my name." And it's $573.62. "But will not just come to me."

I know this is a scam, but I am interested in exactly how the scam works. So I call the number at the bottom of the card and I am told that the money can come from "various sources" (bills, deposits, inheritances, etc.) but that they cannot divulge the specifics over the phone. When I "come in for my appointment" and "sign the necessary paperwork" they will tell me. Huh! It is what I figured, and the cretin on the phone admits that they take their cut. How much? I don't know because the $573.62 is what I get with their "cut" already taken. 20%? 50%? Probably even more.

I say "thank you, but no thank you" and hang up.

Then I decide to do some online investigation. I find lots of websites that will offer free searches for unclaimed money. I put my name in a search engine on one site and it finds $3,041.84. If I want to find out more about claiming this, I can give them my credit card number and search records for one month for the modest sum of eleven dollars. Then I start reading the feedback from irate customers who say they are getting the runaround about canceling their subscription to search options: three years later they are still being charged $11 a month and, not surprisingly, haven't come up with much money or any.

Eventually I find a comment that makes some sense: don't ever pay to find your own money. The commenter has left a link to a legitimate page where it does not cost anything to search or claim your money. I click on the link for my state, key in my name and city, and come up with nothing. Totally believable. And then... just for the heck of it, I key in my name again, changing the surname to my maiden name. Bingo! Without paying a search fee, I discover that AT&T owes me $75 from several years ago. An address is listed which is indeed a place where I lived at one time, and I am able to download a form and given instructions for claiming the money. No registration fee, all government-controlled and totally legit.

Seventy-five dollars is not going to change my life-style, but it was kind of cool to see that underneath the scam... there really were a few extra bucks. And P.S.: Mr. O. also had a $75 apartment deposit owed him from years ago.

Are you a little richer than you think? Here's the place to find out: http://www.unclaimed.org/

N.B. Don't go to "unclaimed.com"... that's the rip-off site. If you want to read about it, MSNBC has an article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12028200/

The Dictionary Game... revisited

One of my favorite memories of my days (years) in Spain was dinners with friends, and one of my favorite memories of those dinners was playing The Dictionary Game, always played at the home of a dear Argentinian friend. When the gossip and the wine
dried up, but the coffee and the dry wit were still going strong, the dinner table became a lively battlefield of outwitting each other. The guests were generally an eclectic mix of other Argentinians, Spaniards and... "non-native" speakers. We in the non-native group had to scramble to keep up with the rest. My goal was not so much writing a convincing definition for a fake word that everyone would vote for, so much as writing something that would not be laughed at for its language errors.

Lately I have been intrigued by the word verfication words in the comment section of blogs. They used to be hopeless mixes of mostly consonants that were annoying to key in, such as gxlzzyrkj, but recently blogspot has started using verification words that... kind of look as if they could be real words. So here is your challenge: One of the words below and its definition is real. The rest are "word verfication" words with my fake definitions. Which one is the real word?

doremitt: silicone oven mitt named after French chef Jean Doré

calrattan: original and/or alternate name of rattan furniture made from the tough stems of climbing palms from the genus calamus

conaling: rapid conoid movement employed in glass blowing to produce perfect cone-shaped vessels for wine and champagne glasses

sfumato: the subtle gradation of color used to blur the contours of a form in painting

sunshe: Chinese beach parasol consisting of a double-mounted umbrella with expandable widths, its name being taken from the English "sun shade."

Spoiler Alert: The answer is now in the comment section.