For those of you who have been following my "father debacle," you'd know that there's been A LOT going on with him.
And what I'm about to tell you will freaking SHOCK your socks off.
But for those of you who don't know, let me give you the "short" version of the story.
My dad lived with me for 3 years. On December 31st of last year, I sent him back home to work things out with his estranged wife. I wouldn't allow him to bury his head in the sand anymore and made him "face the music" with her, whether that meant filing for divorce, patching things up, or whatever.
Little did I know that the decision I made to send him back almost killed him. Literally.
You see, I didn't know it but while my dad was living with me, he continued to support his wife's household. In other words, he kept paying all the bills on his house while she lived there.
But...
The part he DIDN'T tell me was that he started going into debt to continue supporting her. Mind you, this is the same woman who was living in his house that's solely titled to him and...didn't want him to live there.
But, she didn't mind him paying all the bills because she hadn't worked since the late 90s so she lived a pretty posh freeloading lifestyle. For decades.
My dad is quite a bit older than she is. And as he got older, his body started to give out. He couldn't work as hard or as long as he used to. Which is why he wasn't able to maintain the household as well as he did before.
I kept telling my dad, "Sell that f****** house!" He refused.
And then push came to shove.
I was busy moving my entire household from California to Florida over a very long spring/summer of this year. I didn't notice much of what was going on with my dad. He lived about 90 minutes south of me in a little town in South Orange County called San Clemente. We hardly ever saw each other. Then I moved. And that was that. I thought everything was fine.
Then I came back to California in August because my daughter had Taylor Swift tickets for one of the LA shows.
I saw my dad while we were there. He wasn't looking so hot. I asked him if he was okay. He seemed fine...just depressed. I thought maybe the stress of the estranged marriage was finally starting to break him. I told him that I thought it was time for him to sell that house. He said he started talking to his wife about selling but the "talks" weren't going all that well. My dad seemed...slower. Kind of confused. Maybe a bit delusional. I just chalked it off as stress related and called it a day.
In November my daughter and I went back to California so she could visit with her dad for a week. I saw my dad while I was there and that's when things started to take a dark turn. He was NOT the same person anymore. He barely shuffled into the breakfast restaurant we agreed to meet at. His face was a chalky white-gray color. His eyes were sunken in his head. He seemed confused, completely out of it...as if someone gave him a strong dose of morphine. He was definitely weeks away from death, if that. Maybe days away. And I panicked.
I excused myself from the table and went to the lobby area of the restaurant where I called Ron Espinoza in a panic, asking him what I should do. I knew I needed to get my dad OUT of the situation he was in and I had to do it right away. I quickly formulated a plan, made arrangements to get my dad OUT of California ASAP, had my real estate agent bring a listing agreement for my dad to sign on the spot, and called the plan Operation Military Extraction.
Because that's what I felt like we were going to do: snatch him from his house in San Clemente and take him to Panama City Beach, Florida.
It would be more than two weeks after that day when we agreed to pick him up and drive him across the country. I silently wondered if he'd stay alive that long. Or if he's perish in that time frame before we could rescue him out of that situation.
The Saturday after Thanksgiving was his "extraction" date. Ron flew to John Wayne Airport in Orange County and drove him out of California to Vegas that day. My dad wanted to see his lifelong friend Patrick one last time before (presumably) his death.
The moment the two hit the road to Vegas, my dad called his soon-to-be-ex-wife Catherine and the first thing out of her mouth was...
"I'm still on your life insurance policy, right?"
Huh?
Ron looked at my dad with disgust...not believing that this wretched woman had said such a thing. No mention about his health, how he was feeling, etc. Just... "Am I still on the insurance policy?"
At that moment, Ron mentioned that he thought maybe my dad was poisoned. My dad was confused, disoriented, could barely walk, couldn't remember anything...was just a shell of a person. People in hospice care generally have more cognitive skills than my dad had at that time.
A few days later, Ron and my dad arrived in Panama City Beach. I immediately visited this "supplement wiz" in the local area who gave me a hardcore regimen of vitamins to help my dad flush out his system.
We had his blood drawn.
In the meantime, his bitch of a wife kept calling and texting, asking about the insurance policy. Over and over and over again...asking about whether she was still a beneficiary on the policy.
The blood results came back.
Turns out he WAS poisoned with cyanide...found in some brands of ant poison.
I asked my dad how she could have poisoned him. He said that she kept insisting there was an ant problem -- even though he never saw any ants in his house -- so she had him CONSTANTLY go out to buy different ant poisons to remedy the phantom ant "problem." She even had him buy several different brands because she said most of them didn't work.
Evidently she was using this poison...mixing it into his protein powder. Here he was having a daily protein shake, thinking it was making him healthier, and it turns out that it was killing him.
I've never been in a situation like this...a live unraveling episode of Dateline. And I have NO IDEA what to do.
I was so upset at her that I texted her...telling her that we know that she tried to poison him. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything and just sent the Sheriff to her doorstep.
As it stands now, they don't seem to take "attempted murder" all that seriously. Apparently someone actually has to get killed for the cops to care. She got rid of all the evidence, no doubt. The blood test just shows poison in his system. We have that. We have her text messages about the insurance money. But that's about it.
As of now, my dad is still healing. He's gaining his memory back slowly but surely. And I do believe that if it wasn't for those supplements, he'd likely not be alive right now. So, if I get to keep my dad and not have the bitch hag prosecuted for attempted murder, it's definitely the better scenario.
Plus...karma is always a bitch.
And as for the insurance policy? She was removed as the beneficiary the moment he hit Florida. So much for trying to kill him off for the money.
The moral of the story: enjoy life as much as you can. You never know if or when your last moments are.
See you at the top!
Your mentor
Monica Main
P.S. My Underground Secret Event in Detroit on May 17th, 18th, and 19th is filling up. (You can attend virtually or in person.) But, perhaps best of all, I have my SUPER DUPER WINTER BLOW OUT DEAL running right now where the price is a FRACTION of the regular cost, you can bring someone with you for free, and you'll get a whole pile of bonuses I've NEVER offered before. CLICK HERE to watch a quick video where I talk about the event and jump on board ASAP...before it's too late.
Listen, reality is, not many people have the money to get into cash flowing real estate.
The down payment requirement is 20% plus closing costs. Prices haven't crashed yet. (They're slowly going down like a deflating balloon.)
And if you want to make money using my cutting-edge highly profitable real estate investing strategy (which I'll also be explaining at the event), you MUST know this "no cash no credit" secret to go along with it.
CLICK HERE and I'll explain to you exactly what this is all about and what you'll be getting in bonuses. (It's pretty freaking phenomenal!)
Years ago I started sharing this story with my students around Thanksgiving about why I hate pumpkin pie; how my mom used to make pumpkin pies from scratch and she's make so many of them that she's force-feed the remaining balance (usually upwards of 6 or 7 pies) of what she couldn't give away to friends and family to both me and my brother.
And how, to this day, I absolutely refuse to eat pumpkin pie. In fact, I really don't like any pie at all. My brother Jason also feels the same way. I sent him a chocolate cake for Thanksgiving instead.
Interestingly enough, my daughter had her first "Thanksgiving feast" years ago when she was in elementary school where she got to eat pumpkin pie. She told me that it was so disgusting that she spit it out in a trash can.
And I laughed. I thought it was funny as hell. Could she have gotten the anti-pumpkin pie gene from me? (Nice thought, although I believe that would be considered scientifically impossible considering that my experience with pumpkin pie was entirely "environmental," if you know what I mean.)
I went on to say that the problem with the pie she ate was that it was store-bought. And the baked goods they sell in a store isn't nearly as good as the real thing. But I couldn't help myself in telling her my experience with real homemade pumpkin pie and why both me and her Uncle Jay refuse to eat any pie at all. She didn't say much other than to boldly state that she loves apple pie, as it's the greatest pie in the world, according to her.
It's interesting how life works, isn't it? I've come to understand so much about life in having a child's eyes to see the world through. And it's made me so grateful for all the good and even the challenges I face on a week-to-week basis.
If you think about it, no matter how hard things get, we really do have it good. Don't we? At least that's the way I see it. So many people are sitting in war-torn countries right now as we speak while praying they don't get shredded by a bomb, some are homeless in the cold, and some are even missing limbs.
We are blessed in so many ways and it's pretty easy to forget about all these daily miracles we get to reap. But maybe today, just once, we can see it for what it is and feel that deep sense of gratitude for everything we have and for everything we are.
If you're one of those people who actually believes you have nothing right now to be grateful for (hey, maybe it was a tough year for you) then at least feel grateful for what can manifest in your life in the months to come.
What a lot of people don't realize about me is that I don't care about any loss that may happen in my life (except for what's not replaceable). Why? Because I can create it again and again and again. I've taken a few major financial hits in my life. And with each time, I've gotten it all back plus some because I have the tools necessary to do it; these "tools" are nothing more than what I have stored in my brain.
When you're the goose that lays the golden egg and you know that you can create everything you want, it really does make a huge difference.
So, if this was a challenging year for you, be grateful for the amazing things that are coming up for you because you've done a few things that are pivotal in your life: (1) you've decided that you're not going to settle for less anymore, (2) you're going to get your ass out there and finally do this, and (3) you know that you can make this happen because you now have the tools to do this.
And that's all you need.
Be grateful and the seas will part for you.
I will be sharing more about what that means in the days to come.
Happy Thanksgiving!
See you at the top!
Your mentor,
Monica Main
P.S. If you want a "sneak peak" at something extraordinary that I have starting next week, CLICK HERE NOW. It's a rare group that I have that's starting on Tuesday and I cannot wait!!
I had some unfinished business that I had to take care of in California. So, my daughter and I took a quick trip out.
Little did I know that my dad's health has been slipping in a major way.
I met with him last Monday with my real estate agent to list his house in San Clemente. We both agreed that it's time for him to also exit California like I had over the summer. But when I saw him, he looked different, could barely walk, and was slurring his words.
My real estate agent, Rebecca, suggested he get an MRI. I think he's getting dementia or has had a mini stroke. He's been under a lot of stress lately and I realized just how quickly I need to get him out of California.
While in San Clemente last Wednesday, I helped him deal with some of his personal affairs. My daughter wanted to go to the beach (as usual) and my dad went down with us. We snapped this picture (above) and I realized in that moment that we'd never be back to San Clemente ever again...at least not with my dad. It was kind of a sad moment when I made that realization.
There is a "last time" for everything in our lives. My daughter pointed this out to me several months ago when we were leaving California. And many times we're not aware of when that "last time" is.
When we are aware, sometimes it's bittersweet.
As I left my dad, I told him that I'll next see him in Panama City Beach in a couple of weeks. Ron is going to fly out and drive him across the country for me. I'll take care of the sale of his house and other personal affairs.
I decided to stop being so strong-willed and hard-headed. And with that said, I'm retiring my dad out. I'm buying him a beachfront condo. And he won't have to worry about anything ever again.
What allows me the ability to make these kinds of decisions and moves in my life is because I've been able to have ultimate financial freedom, namely through a couple of secrets.
And I'm going to share those secrets with you in a 3-day online seminar...which starts soon.
If you didn't register yet, you still can. You'll be getting two powerful trainings (one starts after Thanksgiving). You'll also be getting a ticket to attend my next two in-person events.
I had it out with my daughter's teacher the other day.
Again.
I had a Zoom meeting with this woman and I started off expressing my disappointment in her boss not getting back to me on the false "plagiarism" accusation by one of her colleagues.
She kept shutting me down by saying that she has nothing to do with the "admin" and blah, blah, blah.
I kept talking anyway, letting her know what a disappointment these so-called "instructors" are turning out to be and what a joke school has become.
All of a sudden, she starts breathing heavily and then holds her heart. I stopped talking. She told me, "My heart is beating so fast, I have to catch my breath."
In other words, what I was telling her was "insulting" her so much, her heart was racing.
And there I was thinking, Bitch, I haven't even warmed up yet!
I went on to tell her that her boss had promised to call me over a week ago. She never called when she said she would. Then she tried to call me a week late at a time that was more "convenient" for her with NO notice, NO confirmation, NO heads up...nothing.
None of these people would make it in the real world. Not a single one.
Yet they're teaching OUR KIDS to somehow be able to make it in the the real world with their B.S. curriculum. Then they clutch their pearls the very moment any parent calls them out on their B.S.
We are DOOMED.
And it's now very difficult for me to take ANY of this school sh** seriously anymore. Education -- if that's what you want to call it -- has gotten WAY worse since I attended school. And I truly believe they are changing the curriculum in a way to make kids dumber than ever before. It's being done ON PURPOSE in the most radical and obvious way imaginable. Yet most parents are too busy trying to make a living (to keep up with hyperinflation) to notice that their children are being mentally corrupted ON PURPOSE. I shudder at how dumb people will be in 10 years.
(If you've never seen the movie Idiocrasy with Luke Wilson...watch it. It's no longer a comedy. It's a crystal ball into our future.)
And this brings me back to YOU. If you've been running on "survival autopilot," it's time to look up and get off the treadmill. Things are changing so rapidly (and NOT in a good way) that it's doubtful that many people will be able to survive a year from now.
Bringing me to my point...
You MUST do something different if you're going to survive these rough waters ahead.
And I have just the opportunity to help you do that.
I have a quick 8-minute video to show you a cutting-edge real estate investing strategy that very few serious real estate investors have ever heard of.
I ran this special training last week. Many of you couldn't make it because it was in the middle of the week. So, I decided to do the training again this weekend.
CLICK HERE to find out what I'm talking about and then you can decide if this is something you're interested in.
But here's a word to the wise: if this isn't for you, FIND SOMETHING THAT IS...like yesterday! The economy WILL collapse any day now and you have a choice: do something about it or be a victim in ways you can't even imagine right now. Why be a victim to the upcoming economic disaster when you can thrive instead?
P.S. If you need to boost your FICO score, the Holiday Blitz once-per-year window of opportunity is coming up next week. CLICK HERE to watch a brief training to show you exactly what you need to do INCLUDING exactly when to send out your dispute letters.
Right now I'm back in California on business. And I'm hating every second I'm here...trust me.
Even more annoying, the cost of living has continued to climb, even since I left 3 months ago.
So, I started getting used to the lower cost of living in Florida, namely with food.
Three containers of strawberries in Florida: $10
When I came back here to California. I went to the store. My daughter wanted strawberries.
$9.99 for ONE container of the same freaking strawberries.
WTF?
I asked my California real estate agent about the economy in Southern California. She told me prices have continued to go up A LOT since I left.
Gas, of course, is still high. Hovering around $7 per gallon. I got used to being in the $3 range.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
But forget about all that. There's something else about California that I noticed.
The attitude.
It changed.
It went from anger, piss, and vinegar...to something else that's perhaps much worse.
Fear, worry, depression, and despondency.
That's the energy here in California now.
I'm so glad I don't live here anymore...and I hate this trip. I just wish I could go home. (Saturday can't come soon enough.)
Which brings me to what I'm doing this weekend.
I am rerunning my 2-day crash course for those of you who (1) tried signing up too late and missed out, or (2) couldn't attend because it was in the middle of the week.
What's this 2-day event about?
In a quick 8-minute video, I'll explain everything to you. CLICK HERE to watch it right now!
Things are changing FAST in the economy. If people in California went from angry bastards to full of fear and worry in 90 days, you can probably imagine just how fast everything is slipping in the economy.
You'll have to make some tough choices if you don't line yourself up with the right opportunity at the right time.
CLICK HERE and I'll explain what I have in mind for you. It's actually quite mind-blowing.
If you missed last week's training, you DO NOT have to miss it again.
P.S. For those of you who want to fix your credit, the once-per-year Holiday Blitz period is coming up starting late next week. You DO NOT want to miss out on this small window of opportunity to send out your credit dispute letters. I did a quick training on how this works. CLICK HERE and watch it now.
One of my biggest motivators in selling my house in California was THIN MAN.
I named him promptly after I saw a tall thin black broomstick-looking shadow wiz past me on hundreds of occasions in my California home.
He was a demonic spirit who hated men and sucked all their energy dry.
I'm not sure where he came from but I remember him showing up sometime after my brother spent the night at my house. I'm not sure if it was a demon my brother attracted in. Or if he came from the neighbor's house. But after he showed up, he never left.
There was a portal between my house and the neighbor's house.
And without going into too much detail, one man next door went batsh** crazy (like Amityville Horror style) and the other completely changed personalities before he died of a massive heart attack.
A new neighbor moved in. He was really cool. And I was hoping Thin Man wouldn't bleed him dry too, taking his soul in the process.
My dad lived with me for almost 3 years before I kicked him out on December 31st last year. I needed to start 2023 fresh and new without any heavy toxic energy around me. So, I sent my dad back home to San Clemente.
Evidently Thin Man was sucking off my dad's soul because after he left, he started making his presence seen and known throughout my house. He became loud and dangerous.
He locked my cat in the shower.
He started breaking things in the house. Things were disappearing. Small things. It was irritating.
The straw for me was when started scratching my daughter's back. She told me there was a burning on her back. I'd look and I'd see red scratches appear. Then they'd disappear about 5 minutes later. It was crazy. This was the WORST Thin Man had ever been in the entire 12 years I had lived there. It was my sign that it was time to go. I couldn't deal with the demon in my house anymore, getting heavier and more obvious with each passing day.
I had dealt with ghosts before. Normally they'd scare the crap out of me. But with Thin Man, it was different. I was aggressive with him. I'd seek him out and yell at him.
One day my daughter was visiting her dad. I was alone in the house, packing up one of my two master bedroom closets. I decided to sit down and have a rest for a moment after all the packing. All of a sudden I hear a knocking in the closet. It was coming from the other side of my closet where the guest room closet was. That was one of the Thin Man's entry points or portals from my house to the neighbor's house. In the guest room closet. (The other was in my master bathroom.) I heard him knocking very loudly, very pronounced, and in some kind of pattern. It was no mistake. Someone was knocking on the other side of that wall.
I got up and quickly went to the guest room. "Where are you, motherf*****." And I threw the closet door open. Nothing there. I don't know what I expected...or what I'd do if there WAS a dark demon standing there. (I guess I didn't think it through all that well.)
I started spraying this Florida water around. It's supposed to get rid of ghosts. It didn't work. But it made me feel better.
The house itself was draining me. And I started to think, Maybe this was the reason why California started weighing so heavily on me. Maybe a big part of it was Thin Man.
Of course, this was only partially true. Thin Man wasn't responsible for explosion of crime, homelessness, and rudeness I had been dealing with in my area for years. But he was taking my sanctuary. My home. And I didn't have anywhere to escape to anymore since he took over my home with his dark presence.
With each passing year, I noticed Thin Man got heavier, uglier, and stronger. I don't know if it's because the area was becoming more negative. Or if he could sense that I was getting weaker. Maybe a little bit of both.
I feel so blessed to have sold my home and moved away.
But right before I left, I had to tell my neighbor, Eric, about Thin Man. At first, I thought he'd think I was crazy. But as the man of the house next door with two girls and a wife, I knew he had to warn him. I didn't want him to go all Amityville Horror on his family one day once Thin Man got into his soul.
Eric listened patiently as I told him about the "portal" between my house and his. I was waiting for him to tell me I was crazy.
Finally he said, "That's why the dog refuses to go into my office. That's the room right next to your master bathroom. And he hates going into my daughter's room. That's the room right next to your guest room."
Hmmm. So he did believe me.
"I smudge my house," he said. "All the time."
I didn't want to tell him but...smudging only made Thin Man angry and stronger.
He didn't seem worried about Thin Man. At least he was aware. So, I had to let it go.
On the last night of our walk through before we left for good, I could feel Thin Man peering at me through the dark. He knew we were leaving. He knew we'd never return. And I could feel his quiet frustration of not knowing what was going on, where all the furniture went, and where we were going...or what was next. I actually felt scared about walking down the stairs one last time. I thought he'd push us or something. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.
The new man of my house...his name is Peter. I left a ceramic angel in the guest room closet facing my neighbor's house in an attempt to ward off Thin Man. (I doubt it helped.) But I often think about Peter and what he thought about the angel in the closet. Did he leave it there? Did he throw it away?
Is he going to figure out why one day...why I put it there...when he meets Thin Man himself?
My daughter asks me if I miss that house at least once a week. I don't miss that house. I miss my koi pond and my koi fish. I don't miss anything else about that house. Like literally nothing at all.
I love change. I love adventure. I love NEWNESS.
I love new opportunity.
And I have just that for you.
If you haven't watched my quick video yet, CLICK HERE. It's only 8 minutes long and it describes this cutting-edge real estate profit opportunity that you've probably never seen before.
Sometimes you just have to walk away from something that is draining you dry, sucking your soul, and killing you. If that's your current job, career, or profession then it's time to get into something new.
A couple of weeks ago, I got this notice from the state of California.
Demanding I file a state tax return for one of my corporations.
And then offering to "settle" for around $1,200 since I didn't file.
Huh?
First of all, the corporation in question was a FLORIDA corporation and had been since Day One (formed in 2020).
Second, I never did business in California with this corporation.
Third...how can they ask for a filing AND a "settlement" all at the same time?
Wouldn't they need to see tax return first to then determine how much I supposedly owe?
This is what we call classic "mail fraud." Send people letters and demand money even though you know damn well they don't owe anything.
The idea is that there will be some suckers who will pay the money. I think that's what they're banking on. Some suckers paying the money they don't legally owe.
They stated that if I didn't want to pay, I'd need to show proof of why I didn't need to pay.
So I sent them PROOF that the corporation is (1) a Florida corporation, (2) has a Florida address, and (3) a letter basically saying f*** off.
I had a friend of mine -- also a former California resident -- tell me that the state of California is worse than the IRS when it comes to trying to collect money they think they owe.
All of this makes me glad that I left California. I'll never move back there. The place is a disaster, getting worse by the day.
Their next big disaster: upping minimum wage to $25/hour. Yes, it's happening.
Now, you might be wondering...how does increasing the minimum wage hurt the state?
Because companies can't afford to pay every worker minimum wage.
Imagine paying a burger flipper at McDonald's minimum wage. As a fast food chain, you'd have to cut everyone's hours back and stay on a skeleton crew.
You'd also have to increase your food costs. Pretty soon a cheeseburger and fries will be $25 just to pay their workers. (Think I'm kidding? Just wait!) Then people won't be able to afford to eat there anymore. Down the tubes fast food (and other businesses) will go.
Companies that cannot survive WILL move out. They will have to...for survival. Kind of like how it was for me. And for millions of people over the past few years.
Places like fast food restaurants WILL adopt automation technology and robots. They will have robots flipping burgers, taking orders through the drive-through, and serving customers. No more wages, insurances, vacation time, legal liabilities, theft, and laziness. No more calling in sick, sexual harassment, spitting in the fries, or stealing company property. They will have one human who will watch the machinery, call a repair person if anything breaks, and to deal with any customer service issues. And that's it! This one person will get paid a nice hefty salary while mostly watching Netflix in the back office. What will the owners care? They're saving millions per year on payroll even paying that one person double what he or she would normally get as a fast food manager. Employee costs would be reduced to ONE person per shift, software and equipment upgrades/repairs...and that's about it!
Think this isn't happening? Think again. You'll start seeing it -- especially in California -- because these business owners will be FORCED to think outside of the box to survive. And one of these changes will be automation, robotics, and A.I. technology.
If I owned a bunch of McDonald's, I'd be OBSESSED with finding robots to do all the work in my fast food restaurants. I'd go into debt for the next 10 years buying up this kind of technology from places like China to AVOID paying a bunch of minimum wage workers $25/hour. After all, a fast food job is NOT a career path. It's an after school job in high school. That's about it. It's NEVER been designed to support a family of four. It's just not a serious career. Sorry. It's not.
Yet people are treating these lower minimum wage jobs as if they are career paths because they're too lazy and apathetic to get any kind of skillset needed to get a better job. How about taking a few computer software night classes at the local college? Or nurse training? Or how about learning sales? Learn a skill that will pay you a lot of money!
Even better, become an entrepreneur! That's the ticket to financial freedom. A job will never do it. Certainly making minimum wage -- even at $25 per hour -- isn't going to cut it anymore.
If you haven't checked out the most incredible investing opportunity yet, CLICK HERE. I shot a quick 8-minute video to explain everything to you.
Listen, things are changing fast. Consumer debt is in the trillions now...the highest it's ever been. The housing marketing is cooling off and actually crashing in some areas of the country. Things are shifting quick.
What do you plan on doing to stay ahead of these changes? Or are you going to "watch and wait" and then probably get sucked up in the undertow, drowning in economic disaster, as the tsunami sweeps you away?
You have more control than you think but ONLY if you act fast and ACT NOW.
The other day I had it out with my daughter's English teacher.
She said that Brie (my daughter) plagiarized someone else's work.
At 5%.
5%?
I told her that it was ridiculous that she'd state that 5% of my daughter's very short essay was plagiarized.
After all, by simply saying THIS in a paper, the dumb wench would say I plagiarized someone else's work:
"In conclusion, it's my opinion that..."
Or...
"I believe the author meant that..."
Yes, her "plagiarism" came down to 5 words. The words I used above EXCEEDED the amount of words my daughter supposedly "plagiarized" in her essay.
How many papers would inadvertently use the words I put in those two sentences above? Did you know that's it's considered "plagiarism" by these dense-headed "educators" if their bogus plagiarism software claim you "stole" someone's work by using EITHER of the partial sentences above?
Even worse, this dumb hag was too lazy to check out what was supposedly plagiarized. Instead, she lazily let A.I. "grade" Brie's paper then gave her a big fat ZERO for the 5% "plagiarism" without even looking at how or why the system claimed she plagiarized someone else's work. Any normal person would have looked, then figured out that it was either a citation (which it was) or a general generic sentence (like the ones I wrote above).
It's absolutely insane how lazy, inept, and stupid these "teachers" really are.
Can you imagine if a copyright attorney went after every romance author out there for "plagiarizing" the words "I love you so much" in ANY romance novel based on a lawsuit filed by some older-than-dirt author from 50 years ago?
Yet, according to my daughter's boneheaded English teacher, using the words "I love you so much" would be considered plagiarism...according to her bullsh** A.I. software.
Stupid wench.
If it can't possibly be prosecuted in a court of law then, guess what? It's NOT plagiarism.
But I think what's really bothering me is that these supposed "educators" are putting up PERMANENT GRADES which can, in turn, affect them for the rest of their lives...and they're not even all that educated themselves.
Worse than that...
If these are the people teaching our kids, what will the future look like 5 and 10 years from now?
I tell my daughter all the time: it's best to NOT KNOW the answer than to know the WRONG answer.
During a quiz (in English, of course), one of the questions she had was this:
True or false: An antagonist helps provide a solution in the story.
My daughter asked me what I thought. I told her to refer back to Dora the Explorer. Swiper. He's a fox in the cartoon series. All he does is try to screw everything up for everybody. He steals stuff. He's always tricking people. He's the antagonist. He is definitely NOT interested in helping provide a SOLUTION in the story.
So, my daughter answers the question. FALSE.
And she f****** got it wrong!
What?
Remember, I have an M.F.A. in creative writing. So, if anyone knows all about protagonists and antagonists in a story, it would be me.
I just about lost it at that point and surmised the following: it would be better for my daughter to get NO education than to learn all the WRONG answers.
It's better to educate someone with a clean slate or empty head, than to spend years UN-LEARNING someone from bad answers, bad education, and bad "facts."
So, now I have to figure out what I'm going to do. Tomorrow I go to battle with the principle. "Dr." Somebody-or-Another. Another POS that earned a bogus Ph.D. with no real life experience, no brain cells, and no concept of the real world. This should be fun.
In the meantime, my daughter told me something that I'm proud of. She reads an entire book every 3 days. She told me, "I'm doing this to replace my English curriculum."
Good job, kid. You'll learn more by polishing your reading skills than anything you'll ever learn from that douche-tard school you're in.
Which brings me to you.
How much do YOU need to "un" learn from the "bad" education you've gotten over the course of your lifetime?
And would you give me an opportunity to do a "clean slate" training for you?
The training starts on November 1st. It's only 2 days long. And it'll cost you only $7. The cost of a Starbucks coffee. Just to show me you're serious. (I'm trying to keep all the flaky tire-kickers out and I figure $7 will do it.)
CLICK HERE to find out more about this training and to register right now.
Listen, you may have not had a choice in how you were educated when you were younger. But you have a choice right now. And only YOU get to choose what goes in your brain from this point forward.
When my daughter was set to start her new high school here in Florida, we had to have all of her shot records "transferred" to some other format. Apparently her California shot card wasn't good enough for the new school.
So, we went to this local yocal county services building "in town," as they say in these here parts. And we sat and waited...and waited.
As we were sitting in the waiting area, I saw this 30-something year old "kid" that was a spitting image of a scrappy kid I had met in the mid-80s at the Bay County Library in Panama City.
Flashback to 1985 when we moved to Panama City for the second time (the first time was in 1983) from Chicago after living with my grandparents for more than a year.
My brother and I were in the Bay County Library in Panama City when I noticed this scrawny-looking kid circling through the book shelves, kind of exuding shy stalking-like behavior, picking up books here and there and pretending as if he was interested in reading. It was clear what he was doing. He was following me.
Imagine Tom Petty as a scrawny scrappy middle-schooler except skinnier, with more pronounced buck teeth, dirty, and without the hat.
THAT is what this kid looked like.
He was trying to hold a book with one hand and holding up his too-big britches with the other, pinching at least 6 inches of cloth at the waist and clearly in need of a rope belt or something.
This would be my first introduction of what a true "hillbilly" looked like. (Is that politically incorrect? Oh well. Who cares?!)
Anyway, I felt him clearly following me around so I purposefully dodged him from one bookshelf to the next.
Just when I thought I lost him, this plump shorter girl popped up from nowhere and asked me a question: "Hal wants to know if you'd go with him." All said with the thickest southern accent you could imagine.
Who the f*** is Hal? I assumed it was the creepoid who was following me.
"Go where?" I asked her.
Evidently, in the south, they would say, "Will you go with me?" Redneck definition: will you go steady with me? Except the question was missing the most relevant keyword in the sentence.
However, at that time I had no idea what this Frick and Frack wanted because it sounded ridiculous to me. So, I said, "No." And then, "I gotta go." And I quickly left.
When I started the 6th grade shortly thereafter, I saw this lanky skinny kid here and there. Thankfully all his classes were on the opposite side of the campus so I almost never saw him after that brief exchange in the library.
But strangely, over the years, I often wondered what happened to him. I'm not sure why him in particular. Maybe because he was so freaking pitiful, ugly, and poor. And during my life in California (starting in October 1987), I cultivated a completely different mindset -- a wealth mindset -- which every so often prompted me to think about people on the "other side of the tracks." And no one could be more of a poster boy of poverty than that kid I saw in the library that day.
So, when I knew I was moving back to the Panama City area, I thought... "I wonder if I'll bump into that guy again. I wonder what ever became of him." I imagined that he'd be living in a trailer, probably just as skinny as he ever was (due to not eating much or being a meth addict...or both), smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, and likely on welfare. I had hoped better for him. I had hoped that maybe he would have gotten a "wake up call" by a teacher in school perhaps or was dragged to a Tony Robbins seminar. And maybe he started some kind of highly successful roofing company or something. But I doubted it somehow.
Fast forward to 2023. My daughter and I are sitting in this county services building lobby and I'm watching this kid -- a spitting image of the impoverished hillbilly kid from the library -- walk past us. He was bitching at his mom as he was walking away from her and then exited out the door, pissed off. Incredibly disrespectful. This 30-something kid was wearing top-of-the-line designer brand clothes and shoes, holding a top-shelf iPhone model in his hand. There is no way this kid could NOT be the spawn of the dude stalking me in the library in 1985. No way. There's no possible way two people could look exactly the same...like...that...hillbilly kid.
It was his son, no doubt.
I looked toward what I assumed was...his grandma? I didn't know at first. It was an obese woman sitting in a seat sucking off an oxygen mask. As I looked more closely at her, I realized that this was likely NOT his grandma but probably his mom.
The pudgy girl from the library.
The one who asked if I'd "go" with Hal.
That was her.
She was MY AGE. And yet she easily looked at least 20 years older than me. AT LEAST. And there she was...obese, sucking on oxygen, looking like death-warmed-over, and getting yelled at by her self-entitled Millennial kid who spent all his money on designer brands while standing in an office that also served as the welfare department as well. They were probably there for food stamps or something. Yuck.
Then it hit me...
Holy sh**.
What would have happened if I would have said YES to her ridiculous question in the library that day? Would THAT kid be MY kid?
I shuddered at the thought and wanted to throw up. (I will tell you this: if he talked to ME that way, I would have punched him into next week.)
Those are the questions you have to ask yourself when you make one small decision at any point in your life. Many times, without you realizing it, you've dodged the bullet.
And many times, unfortunately, because of one poor decision, you have NOT dodged the bullet.
Have you ever thought about that ONE DECISION you could have made that would have made all the difference, good or bad?
I have one for you right now. That ONE DECISION that can make a huge difference...or not...and something you'll be kicking yourself later over if you DON'T do this.
CLICK HERE right now to find out what I'm talking about.
Too bad "Hal" didn't read any of those books in that library. Especially about business-building and investing. He and his spawn would be much further along in life.
What a difference a generation makes...for ONE DECISION. One FOOLISH decision. Don't be like Hal.
CLICK HERE right now to find out what I'm talking about.
