Tonight I bought magazines from one of those teenagers that go door-to-door. It gets worse than that... I gave her cash because I fell (sort of) hard for her sob story, even though part of me thought I might never see the cash or magazines but because I wanted her to get out of the cold and rain, and it sounded like this kid was in near-indentured servitude to this company (drives them around the country, drops them off to sell magazines, picks them up after they have "made their quota"). And she came back twice and really talked talked talked about herself.
Mind you, we live in a major city and I am one of those people who doesn't even give my credit card number over the phone and we shred everything with our names on it because we are so paranoid. I also usually have a "high BS" factor because I often work with teenagers.
DH freaked out about it when we came back because 1) the Dept. of Justice is investigating companies like this for scamming reg folks and manipulating those who work for them
2) possibiliity of spam/ identity theft because they now have the name and address of a sucker like me
He doesn't even know about the cash (though that's the least of it). He actually asked if this was "a cry for help" because I wouldn't normally do this and if I needed more adult contact!
Maybe I do... I'm not really great at this staying home stuff, only 4 months into it... and when I see the baby all day, I forget how the world sometimes works (or doesn't).
So we "cancelled" the subscription but now I am awake at 3 AM feeling dumb and sad that I am supporting the manipulation of these teens, sad that I am not otherwise helping them, and now worried that I've given out enough info for them to rob me in person or electronically... I just hope that "they" weren't casing our house to rob it as they now know I am occasionally home alone with my new baby in the evenings, name, etc. Of course, there's not much to steal except baby stuff... :)
But I do feel a bit that I've failed some in my only "real job" these days, keeping my baby safe.
Karen