Being Gullible

Some people in this world are just gullible.  I mean no offence.  I happen to be one of them.  Particularly when I was young I fell for every story or trick my brothers could come up with.  I believed my brother who told me Bruce Lee was poisoned because he was too fast to shoot with bullets.  Then there was the time he convinced me to try almond extract straight from the bottle.  He poured it on a tablespoon and I smelled it.  It smelled alright to me so I swallowed it.  That was a rude awakening.  Then I was convinced to run speaker wires through the wall in order to place speakers in my room.  That way I could listen to my brother’s stereo.  Soon the morning came when he placed a speaker on either side of my bed while I was sleeping.  Then he turned off the sound to those speakers until the chorus of the song when Peter Gabriel screamed, “Lord, here comes the flood!” I nearly jumped on the ceiling.  When watching the “Lone Ranger” I noticed he never seemed to run out of silver bullets.  So, I asked where he received them from.  I was told he got them from his “mine.”  What heard was “mind.”  So, I asked my brother how he could get bullets out of his mind?  He told me he stuck his finger in one ear and the bullet came out the other.  That’s why he never ran out of bullets.  When I was grown I worked with an abrupt fellow with what sounded like a New York accent.  We didn’t talk much.  So, I asked another associate what his deal was.  He told me the fellow was in the Witness Relocation Program and that no one knew his whole story.  I believed that for 6 years.  Until I talked with him and he gave me a plausible explanation.  There is a silver lining to all this.  I am now extremely skeptical.  If an email looks at all suspicious, I delete it immediately.  Regular mail scams also go in the garbage.  As a rule, I don’t believe people’s stories.  If I ever won a trip or a car I would never know because I delete those messages.  I am still gullible but I have developed a hard-protective crust.  It’s lonely not trusting people but it beats getting burned.