It's the first day of October and the first thing I read on my Facebook news feed today is my friend's call to ignore messages coming from her account. Apparently, she was hacked and the said hacker had been asking money from anyone on her friends list.
This is not the first time I've heard of this. It's not a surprise that people would do things unimaginable just for money.
But anyway.
Two of my friends have had their photos used by imposters to scam people on Facebook just recently.
Friend #1 learned about her imposter when it tried to sell baby stuff on Facebook and her friend from another city saw the listing. The imposter's fake profile was reported and taken down before anyone could fall prey.
As for Friend #2, it was already too late when she found out about it. She was getting virtually sucker-punched by angry and frustrated victims after realizing they had been duped into sending their hard-earned money for nothing. Her face was posted on different groups, labeled with the most demeaning words while the real perp got away with it.
Well, that's scary.
This is not the first time I've heard of it. It happens all the time and it could happen to anyone—especially us, ordinary people whose faces are not easily recognizable by a lot of people.
But you know what scares me more?
I still remember the last time I drew something. It was Valentine's Day four years ago when, like any other Valentine's, Jan and I had nothing better to do. It was a year before the pandemic but staying home was already a much better choice that day.
So Jan challenged me to draw something and I did.
The past few days had been quite a challenge because I was left alone to deal with two wild toddlers and a teen with raging puberty hormones. And as I watched them destroy the house while I slowly sipped my coffee, feet up, I had been thinking about how I will be rewarded for being great at maintaining a healthy marriage by allowing the husband to go on a three-day trip because I believed he needed to have some fun too.
I mean, Solen Heussaff gave Nico Bolzico no more than 24 hours to fly to Davao to hike Mt. Apo and back, while Jan was granted 3 freakin' days. How lucky can he get? I suppose he must have thought of rewarding me with something I truly deserve like an ultimate steak night date or a Vespa. The latter is mostly preferred, thank you.
I looked out the window and saw dark, heavy clouds looming over. Five minutes later, it began to pour. I took a sip of my coffee and realized it wasn't warm anymore. I put the cup down and started heading back to the bedroom. Getting snuggled underneath all those blankets and sheets on a rainy day sounds better than a cold coffee, I thought.
I moved toward the bed and felt a much stronger gravitational force around it. With barely four hours of sleep, I could have easily collapsed on the soft mattress, pulled my phone out and made up a convincing excuse why I could not go like I usually do.