A Sucker Is Born Every Minute: Cute Lollipop Story Wrought With Exaggerations, Bad Decisions, and Questions

Kid Orders Thousands of Dollars in Lollipops and Fallacies Pop Up In the Story... Yet, We Shouldn't Talk About It...Right? I Will. I Will Try to Be Nice

Hello All

First off, I want to thank you all for reading my Shedeur Sanders column a couple weeks ago. I found that a lot of my readers liked my practical idea, even though it was strongly tied to commercialism that we all see these days.

Secondly, this column is 7200 words. It will take 20-25 minutes according to my data here. It’s a LOT. It’s not something you can read on the toilet, unless you have food poisoning.

If you get my emails, it may be easier to read this on Substack’s site because it may cut off some photos/words.

Reader discretion is advised. I use bad language. I talk about uncomfortable things, and I mainly break down a ridiculous story like a real reporter SHOULD, by questioning elements to the story.

It’s now 7300 words :)

Now, I am no grouch…at least not anymore. I am inquisitive though, and I am one to think outside the box often, because outside the box is where the most fun can be.

This column is much more different than

AGGREGATOR

simply because I talk about everything on here, many of the things with a bit of business savvy from being a consumer and twenty years in the banking industry.

20 Years Ago, I was a dick. Let me say it. I was a major dick. I was a 22 year old man with a chip on his shoulder. I also went from zero to 60. Computer geek nerdy high school student to popular, semi-athletic ladies man. Stuff like that messes with your mind, but it gives you perspective on how people think.

Throw 15 years in banking in there, and understand how people deal with accountability, tell lies, and more importantly, try to portray stories where they are the protagonist and not the antagonist, and you become jaded.

I think I hated people a lot more back then. Then I lose my banking job, and I am humbled. I used to hate that word, and then I embraced it. Now? I don’t like it again, because in a world that seemingly takes advantage of you, I am finding out being the demure one is not in my nature. I do have to get angry and questioning and more importantly, call out bullshit in this world. It’s what I do best.

Talk to me in person and you will understand.. I go 100mph.
I don’t brake for kids or old people or women. I don’t brake for irrational narratives, and I certainly don’t brake for stories full of half-truths and questionable plot details.

This following column is very easily something you could have seen 15 year ago with my name on it, but a lot meaner.

I’m still going to be mean… However, I am going to be intelligent mean, and call on all of you to stop being suckers on social media, and even though it wasn’t used in this case, be wary of GoFundMe posts, calls to action for kind of cloudy reasons, and stories that sound funny and cute, but really are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Some people will get mad at me for feeling this way, but mind you, I have thought this through for a month, and I still feel the way I do, so let’s get down and dirty.

2016

I am a manager at Bank of America in Las Cruces, NM. I hate my job, mainly because earlier that year, a home purchase I was trying to make went sideways with my bank, doing the same redlining techniques I saw with other people. My wife and I were technically homeless and I threatened to quit the bank if they didn’t give me my home loan, knowing I had their ineptitude on record and I would share it with the media. I leveraged the media to get my way… It was warranted, and I never fibbed once.

Later in this story you will see someone who didn’t do it the right way.

I got my house, and I got a target on my back the rest of my time there. But I did love working with clients and the people were great, and the coworkers were a mishmash of friendly, flirty people, shit I cared about a lot more back then.

One thing happened that fall that ticked me off: “Corporate,” who my BofA direct superiors always made it sound like a clandestine type of person, like the “Deal or No Deal” banker, made a decision that was sure to piss off customers and in turn, cause us to lose our satisfaction scores to the point where we would lose bonus money.

“THE BANKER at Corporate” decided all branches needed to curtail spending on “Non-Essential” items, not that we were buying macaroons and exfoliating cream already, as our budget was $500 a month, largely spent on paper and toner. We paid for our own pens.. pens our clients stole from us. They even stole my female coworkers hand soaps and “female products” in the women’s bathroom.

So by that, we were told we could no longer buy lollipops for our clients’ kids.
Yes, the no-name flattened circle looking “Suckers” that looked like edible poker chips on a stick were no more. The bank wouldn’t pay for them anymore.

They also did not allow us to buy water in our branch at 250 W Amador. No Sparkletts guy, no cases of bottled water, nothing. Sometimes clients wanted a water and we obliged, but it was mainly for us as the bank had a half-working A/C in the summer.

The first few days of the no suckers thing was rough.

”Can I have a sucker for my kid?”
”Sorry, we don’t have any.”
”Are you fucking kidding me? What fucking bank doesn’t fucking have suckers for their kid?”

Lady from India who ran a business and banked with us came in with a 2 year old kid. Manish was his name. He was smart to know that bank = lollipop, so when he would come in with mom (who was gorgeous by the way, easily the most attractive woman from India in this town,) he would say “Candy, Candy,” though it sounded like KUN-DEE, KUN-DEE. I still say “Kun-Dee” to this day when I myself want a candy.

He asked for one. I told the mom we didn’t have one. She had me repeat it because maybe it was lost in translation. Nope, it wasn’t. We didn’t have one. The kid, Manish, cries the way a kid who fell off of a damn tree would cry.

With her, since she was a business customer, they get surveys all the time that rate our service. I got a 5 from her, which is basically a 0 to BofA, and that 5 actually pushed our score down enough in the quarter to take away about 15% of our bonus money (about $500…over a lolly)

I am not kidding.

At first we weren’t combative with BofA about the suckers, until that happened, then we begged for suckers and water.

”You don’t need it, and your facility has 3 water fountains according to the layout. Customers can drink from it.”

It’s probably been about 20 years since I drank from a fountain, so I wouldn’t send clients to. Plus the ones in our building reeked of sulfur, and one by the public restrooms was unpleasant, because you could smell shit and cheap bathroom cleaning agents as you drank.

We knew that the “Lollipop situation” was going to cause more damage the more we let it linger, so my coworkers at the time, who I won’t name, because they don’t deserved to be typed out in full name.. well, 2 of the 3 anyway, and I thought about buying cases of water at the store for us and clients.

Since I was Mr. Couponer, they knew I could do it, so when it was time to find a sale, they would give me money for 5 cases of water. One weekend, the grocery store had $1.99 24pks of water (remember those days?) and I bought 20 of them. We would be able to proactively offer a water if we needed to go to the back for paperwork reasons. It was a nice touch.

I was also tasked with buying lollipops. We bought Dum-Dums and any lollipops reasonably priced. We spent about $20 each to buy 1000s of lollipops that inevitably lasted longer than the bank was open for. It closed August 7th, 2018. I left the bank 10 days later.

But.. We never had to worry about not being ready for such a simple request like a lolly for a kid again. It was great.

Note: A big boss came about 6 months later, and we got scolded for having lollipops. She told us, “It makes BofA’s service inconsistent. Now if they go to an El Paso branch, and they don’t have them, they will get a bad score, and if they lose their good score, they lose dollars in their bonus, as do I.”

Yep, branch performance was tied to her bonus, so us having suckers propped us up, but brought others down since they were now without.

…Now you know why I never want to f-ing work for a major company again.

Now, 9 years later, I still think about moments like that, and wondered how I stayed alive. Serious. I was perpetually depressed, and I was made to feel so small in banking for so long. I was depressed and not wanting to live at times. I showed how depressed I was in my social media posts and actions. When not gooning over the next college girl to friend request me, I would gloriously shit on anything for no apparent reason just to be mean.

This is something that people do regularly now in 2025.

Although I am on social media a lot in 2025, mainly because my job requires me to, as I break news and discuss topics to my readers, I don’t get the same thrill as I used to. I could care less if people know what’s going on with me anymore, and I am highly skeptical of people’s intentions as to why they post anything now, because even the internet dummies of 2025 are still 10x smarter than the net “Experts” of 2005.

Some people are so transparent though, you can see their bullshit from a mile away.

Some people just crave to be social media famous, where they know if they get their story out there, there’s this whole other level of riches and free shit that comes from your story getting out there.

First person I remember gifting people from viral stories was Rosie O’Donnell on her show in the late 1990s.

Now, political people, piss off. This isn’t about that. Her talk show was so good in the 1990s that I would watch it every day at my grandma’s house. She was just known for audience giveaways and coordinating with corporate partners to give people who weren’t famous, but had unique stories, stuff as a ‘reward’ for lack of a better word for telling their story.

Sometimes you would get stuff just cuz….

But here’s the cancer part of today’s life? Everyone knows about these things now, so they weave these tall tales in order to get more shit and more publicity which can lead to more shit.

For the life of me, I never thought there would be a story about lollipops so ridiculous that it tops my bonus-losing story brought on by a cheapskate bank cutting out suckers for the kids.

Then I saw Holly LaFavers from Lexington, KY and her “story” about her and her kid, and then I thought, “No, this is the most ridiculous one. No wailing Indian child could top this.”

2025

Before I continue, this story involves her kid, and in the interest of not giving her or him any more publicity, I will say the kid’s name once and that will be it. I have nothing bad to say about the kid…he’s a kid. He doesn’t know any better.

I hope he leads a wonderful life.
But mom, we got to talk…

I was in line to donate blood on Tuesday morning as I always do. Some of my readers (I hate calling them ‘fans’) have spotted me in line waiting and call out my name, which gives me a lot of joy knowing that I am important to their daily routine. I usually go through a bunch of topics with the dudes in line there. These are people who I call my friends now, because I enjoy hearing what they have to say, and vice versa. It’s the most organic conversation ever.

But one day I was scrolling the news headlines and saw Holly LaFavers from Lexington, KY on the top stories and I about had a mental breakdown in line while waiting to donate.

FWIW, About 15 minutes after I read her story, I had to give a Blood Pressure reading and while my BP was normal, my pulse was 99, which is one beat away from not being able to donate and cost me $80. It literally boiled my blood.

So, Holly LaFavers has a kid. Liam is his name. Of course it is. How many Liam’s do you know born in the last decade? It’s the Nevaeh (2000s) and James (1980s) of the 2020s.

She ran into quite a predicament with her son as parents normally do. Now, yes, I am not a parent, but I do have 13 nieces and nephews, and for the last 16 years, I have been Uncle James, getting to know these kids up and down. I love every single one of them, but yes, kids suck sometime. They do crazy things. Sometimes it’s eating cheetos in the bed. Sometimes it is peeing the bed. Sometimes it is screaming for no reason.

For Holly LaFavers it was much different. It was her son purchasing 70,000 Dum-Dum Suckers (lollipops) on Amazon. This was a $4,000 purchase. The story was about 1, how wild it was that her kid did that, 2, how hard of a time she was having returning them, and 3, a giant puff piece about her zany kid doing something that would have likely gotten me the belt in the 1990s if they had smartphones, and how damn cute it was, despite all the adult issues that came with it.

But the story from the Associated Press, as it was published by NBC News that I was reading, got me so riled up as I read it, because I know I was reading a hoax. I know it. I will prove it to you.

Here’s a screenshot of the first two paragraphs:

LEXINGTON, Ky. — A Kentucky woman was in a sticky mess when she found stacks of boxes containing lollipops on her front doorstep. The surprise delivery was ordered by her young son while he played on her phone.

Holly LaFavers says she tried stopping 8-year-old Liam’s Amazon order for about 70,000 Dum-Dum suckers before the treats arrived, but it was too late.

So read the first paragraph again. She “FOUND” stacks of boxes containing lollipops on her front doorstep. That implies that she didn’t know it was coming.

Next paragraph, “(Holly) tried stopping 8-Year Old (son’s) Amazon order before the treats arrived, but it was too late.

SO, WHICH WAS IT? SHE DIDN’T KNOW AND THEY SHOWED UP ON HER DOOR?….OR SHE WAS IN A PERILOUS STATE TRYING TO ‘STOP’ THE ORDER UNTIL THE BOXES DEFEATED HER?

Lie #1

Now, for the sake of this argument, this is relevant, because Amazon does give you roughly an hour to cancel an order before it goes through. It would help to know if the kid added 22 cases to one order or if he ordered 1 case 22 times, because if it was the latter, the woman would not only have a shit-ton of emails, numbering 60-80, but since she likely had the Amazon app on her phone, she likely had push notifications telling her the status of every damn step of the process of the suckers…another 60-80 pushes at least.

This is my pushes I get for things I didn’t even buy. If you have the app, you likely have as many if not more of these.

This is off of two orders I placed this week. I will get a delivered notification as well so 6 emails on 2 things. Multiply that by 11 if he ordered 1 box 22 times.

Next part of the story from the AP as published on NBC news:

“He told me that he wanted to have a carnival, and he was ordering the Dum-Dums as prizes for his carnival,” LaFavers said. “Again, he was being friendly, he was being kind to his friends.”

The surprise got worse after a quick check of her bank account. She owed about $4,000 for the order.

“When I saw what the number was, I just about fainted,” LaFavers said.

In the same 2 sentence mini-paragraph, a glaring contradiction.
”She checked her BANK ACCOUNT.”
”She owed about $4,000 for the order.”

Which is it? You don’t OWE on a bank account. You would OWE on a credit card. Now I know what you are going to say: Overdrafted her bank account.

Well, this is where you get Mr. 15-Year Bank Manager James to mansplain something to you.

1. No bank, even during the height of excessive overdrafts, pre-2010, would not have let 22 separate orders go through on a checking account/debit card and pay 22 separate OD Fees. For as shitty as banks are, even my former company would have flagged the transaction by the 3rd or 4th order, not because of the amount, but because they are similarly priced, denoting an irregularity.

2. If she had OD protection to her checking account from a credit card, it is likely it could have gone through as she claimed, however, the amount of times her ODP hit in a single day would have flagged and there is no way it would have went down as she claimed.

3. Every debit card with every major bank and most minor banks have a decline all setting where it does not LET you purposefully let you overdraft anymore, so, I am not saying she was rich, but she didn’t owe anyone anything because that means if it was her bank account, she had to have had every penny of that money if she didn’t have ODP and it was not on a credit card. $4000 is more than about 60 percent of Americans have in there.

LIE #2
So, yes, the Amazon emails and push notifications SHOULD have notified her, but the bank very easily could have flagged the account if it was 22 separate orders. Now, yes, people don’t check their bank accounts, but there was some paper trail that could have come from the banks, and I bet you a million dollars there is still more coming from the bank. (more on that later)

So, I do blame the writer here. I bet you the writer is young, because they mix-up simple bank terminology in telling the story, and a seasoned veteran would ask about the bank intricacies to help them make it make sense.

One of the bigger potential fallacies is in the photo taken by Holly and given to the AP

Many things here. Some are ME things, and some things beg for questions.

1. So… I don’t know if you notice, but there is a non-lollipop Amazon package in her photograph. So she likely, unless it was her kid too, was expecting a package from Amazon, and there is zero chance she wasn’t cognizant of when it was coming, and by looking at her phone, should have seen, could have seen the suckers coming.
   
   No one is that blissfully unaware. We are addicts with our phones. We know everything, anything, all the time.

2. One thing in her defense (sorta) is that I know KY has a pretty major Amazon distribution facility presence in her commonwealth (remember Kentucky isn’t a state, ask any local) and a couple of those are in Lexington, less than 10 minutes away from her house.

   

   So, I could see him placing the order, and her getting it same day, which is entirely plausible, but at the same time, if you used a credit card, it would not hard post to your account for 2-3 days, and the debit from the checking account would not happen fast enough for her to know what’s going on that way.

3. Then I saw the photo, and understanding I buy almost everything from Amazon that’s non-grocery (well, there and Walmart+) I know what delivery company delivers certain types of items. When I bought mattresses, almost always UPS or Fedex. When I buy shaving cream, almost always USPS, TVs? UPS/FedEx. I don’t know the reasoning other than “BIG STUFF = SHIPPING COMPANY, NOT THE POST OFFICE”
   You see how little the trucks are.
   
   So, I looked at the photo, and then I referenced this quote in the same story.
   
   Then she found out that eight more cases from the order were unaccounted for, she said. After a trip to the post office, those cases were returned to sender, she said.

   Her efforts to get a refund took a bit more time, but she got her money back.
   

   “After a long day of working with the bank and talking to a few news stations Amazon called and they are refunding my money,” she said in a social media post.

   
   So, another thing that pops up is the 8 that are mentioned as Return to Sender, yet in every photo I see, there are 22.
   
   So, he ordered 30 boxes, not 22. So, maybe he did 30 separate orders? More on that shortly.
   

   I also looked at the photo

   
   I looked and I looked and I looked and I told myself, “Those aren’t USPS labels. Not from Amazon. Nope.”
   
   So I asked ChatGPT…

   

   
   Then, I consulted a friend, my best friend from high school who happens to work at FedEx. Sure he is not as smart at ChatGPT, but he sees those boxes every day, and yes they are FedEx labels.

   
   So…why tf did she go to the post office then? Now, again, it might be a writer conflating FedEx with the Post Office, but I mean even the most millennial kid ever isn’t that dumb, right?'

   
   
   BUT SHE SAID THE POST OFFICE TOLD HER 8 CASES WERE ‘RETURN TO SENDER’ FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON. HOW DID THE POST OFFICE TELL HER THAT WHEN THOSE ARE CLEARLY FEDEX LABELS?!?!?!
   
   LIE #3

   
   
   Then in that part of the story, she mentions she was working with the bank, talked with a few news stations, and Amazon called and are refunding her the money.
   
   So, working with the bank on what… a fraud claim? It’s not fraud. It’s an unauthorized purchase, and any bank will ask you the question, “Did you order this?”

   
   Did she say “No?” I mean, technically she didn’t order it, but obviously other Amazon purchases have come to her house from her card and the same account, right? So in reality it is “Yes.” Where people lose claims is that they try to embolden a lie into making it a truth. The fact is her account purchased it with her card and went to her house. So calling the bank ahead of or at the same time as calling Amazon is incorrect, as you are only supposed to file a dispute when Amazon doesn’t help you.

   
   I bet you a million dollars that a claim is still pending for her bank charges of the lollipops. I know it. No one ever calls the bank to tell them “It’s cool.”

LIE #4

The talking to the news stations I am ok with. I am it’s a trade-off. You give them a story, they give you attention to your problem, if there is one, and usually getting people to the local news works wonders. My The Notorious Banker project helped people recover millions of dollars from banks, and most of the time my goal was to get people on local TV because my former company and Wells Fargo HATES bad publicity, so they will almost always refund you no problem.

Here’s the issue though. She talked to the AP after talking with many news stations, which means she was fishing for someone to take the story. Where does one have the time to coordinate such a press attack like that? This is where I call BS as well. Not every channel is going to cover the story the same way. It’s not a murder. It’s a cute, weird story with a wild premise.

Here’s the KY newscast story. I love the anchor’s drawl btw.

In the story there was an image of one of the boxes and it had a different label than the other photo.

That looked like a UPS label. I checked GPT and yes it was…

So, now let’s assume some came FedEx, some came UPS, and there were 8 that allegedly came USPS, it tells me they all didn’t come from the same distribution center. While there is no reason on Earth for the 8 to be returned to sender, the fact of the matter is the story is more complicated than the post office did this and that. No, there are 3 separate shipping companies at work here, which means what she said is not true. If the boxes were returned to sender, she would have gotten her money back on the 8, which means her bank claim was incorrect (with amount) and it means she never mentioned her UPS or FedEx interactions, if any at all.

I asked GPT is it possible for 30 items in one order to ship multiple ways via Amazon.

Ok, so then the one order of 30 likely holds water, because I checked on Amazon to see what’s the most you can order and it is 30.

So, it is likely that 30 boxes came from several distribution centers because some locations likely didn’t have 30 to send. That’s fine.

In this news story, she was on video calling Amazon and told her information was going to be taken down, and they will follow up with her.

Now I will be honest here. I have had some major issues with Amazon customer service lately. It’s mostly outsourced, which is not the reason I don’t like it. Hell, Indian customer service agents are much more emotionless about stuff, so I expect a more professional approach when talking with them.

But at the same time, I don’t know what exactly the lady was expecting for them to do. Why couldn’t she just return them? Returning shit is easy on Amazon. You can even schedule UPS to pick them up from your door, and not have to do anything but slap a label on them.

The story in KY, local news of all things, had a “fact check” on it as to why she couldn’t return it.

It’s because it was bought from a third party seller, and they didn’t have returns as the food could be contaminated upon return. Think like those kids licking ice cream in the grocery store a few years ago.

I checked for myself:

Spangler Candy Company sells it, not Amazon, though Amazon stores and ships it. So that’s the problem right there. The only time I ever had an issue with a return on Amazon was a really cool ceiling fan I bought that didn’t work and the seller was Chinese using a US based shipping facility. Had to wait until 3am to freaking talk to them every day. It sucked. So it all makes sense why Amazon was unhelpful, and I get it a little clearer now.

So why all the damn lying above?

It seems to me that her playing stupid was a byproduct of unhelpful Amazon not wanting to deal with you since it was a third party selling it and they weren’t looking to give you $4000 back willy-nilly.

I got it. It makes sense now. But still… We aren’t done yet.

BUT IF YOU WATCH THE END OF THE STORY, THE UPDATE WAS AMAZON AGREED TO GIVE HER THE MONEY BACK

From an ABC Chicago story:

Prior to the refund, LaFavers shared her story on Facebook and offered the unopened boxes of Dum-Dums for sale. Thanks to friends, family and strangers in her hometown of Somerset, Kentucky, within two hours, she said, every box was accounted for -- purchased by local banks, doctor's offices, and even a chiropractor.

"My friends and family in Somerset truly stepped up and they were able to help," LaFavers said. "They understood that it wasn't anything malicious, and that I was an honest person. That's amazing."

So, she sold the boxes allegedly to banks, doctors offices and more.
There’s photos on her FB about it.

So, the money she sold them for is offset on the refund from Amazon, right?
Also, the bank is aware of the refund from Amazon right?
Because if not, She is possibly scratching 5-figures that she could get from this..

When people get their resolution, very rarely do they realize other stuff needs to be tied up. It’s quite possible that Amazon chargedback the Spangler Candy Company to recoup the refund they gave her, which means the candy company would eat a $4000 loss, and a loss of product.

The bank spends many manhours researching “Fraud claims” and someone was assigned to this that can be actual fraud.

For this to be a cute story and a lesson learned by all, she needs to reconcile the suckers to $0. Meaning she needs to offset any gains she got from the full refund + monies she made from the sale to local businesses.

Otherwise, it’s the very definition of unethical. Someone has to pay the piper, and honestly there is no one who did their job wrong.

Spangler Candy Company was tagged in her thank yous, so I am assuming there was an ok resolution with them as well, but I do believe if she didn’t get her money back, the poor Spangler Candy Company would have had their name dragged through the mud in true American fashion like people like to do when they don’t get their way.

But she needs to not profit from this in order for it to be ethical. There’s no reason that she should profit from it.

Finally… the most touchy thing of them all.

---

There was a qualifier about the child being sick with what is called Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, which is a new nom de plume for Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. I had never heard it called that before.

In researching more about the story, I found out that Holly is not the biological mom of the kid. From the article:

Liam came into LaFavers' life when he was 4 months old and was officially adopted by her when he was 2 and 1/2.

She said educating others about FASD and raising awareness of the condition is one reason she's sharing her story, explaining, "These kids go undiagnosed because it's not as well known."

Reflecting on the experience of Liam's unexpected Amazon order, LaFavers has one message for fellow parents.

"Don't panic. And I panicked, I can say now that I'm on the other side of it, don't panic," she said. "Everything will eventually work out. Just have faith that everything will be OK, because it will be fine, and make sure you lock your phone."

I once shared a meme of a young woman who left school to protest a test she was taking in my hometown in Socorro. The group was harassing people with signs, creating a disorderly conduct environment, and more importantly, protesting something that they didn’t even know what they were protesting about. Seriously, they had no clue what they were walking out about, just that others in the state were doing it.

Here’s the meme. The photo I stole from an El Defensor Chieftain story

Misspelling a word was priceless…so I created a meme:

It went viral for a decade ago, shared to millions of people. George Lopez shared it. Cheech shared it, and one DJ by the name of Chaz Malibu, a top-40 DJ in Albuquerque shared it. It went mega-viral, and I got praised for my meme by so many.

And then about 2-3 days later, I see a post from Chaz Malibu on social media who said he talked to a family member of the girl (I won’t say her name) and from the chat, he was told she was special ed, and that he is truly sorry for everything.

Then in that moment it went from “How sad!” to “HEY JAMES BACA IS HARASSING A SPECIAL NEEDS GIRL. GET HIM!!!!”

I got death threats. I got harassed everywhere I went. It is still unsafe for me to travel back home at times, depending who is around. I am serious. All because someone for lack of a better way of saying this, told the DJ, “This girl is retarded. Leave her alone.”

Now, I know you may take offense at my use of the word, but let’s not kid ourselves. It’s a word that was safe to use until someone made it a perjorative. She’s not, but it didn’t matter, I got hosed for weeks on that meme. I didn’t even take the picture. Her presence at a protest was permission enough to be photographed with her misspelling

The moral of that story? If you use a physical or mental disability as a reason for your behavior, not only is it excused, but becomes weaponized by others to allow you to basically do whatever you want to do going forward.

Now, the young kid in this story is very young, so he can’t weigh the consequences of his actions, because even with challenges or now, “I wanted to buy 70,000 lollipops for gifts at my carnival” is by definition a stupid kid fantasy that knows no disability. I was 8 years old too. I have an 8 year old niece as well.

And that’s fine. Kids should have imaginations. But again, look at her quote:
"Everything will eventually work out. Just have faith that everything will be OK, because it will be fine, and make sure you lock your phone."

Wait, she had said that he was using her phone as a ‘reward’ for being a good kid and that he went rogue and bought the lollipops. Sigh. What the heck? So why is she saying “Lock the phone?” She gave him the phone as a reward. Her phone, which banks tell you to treat like your wallet was given to a kid to play with.

This is really touchy for me. All my nieces and nephews are addicted to their phones and YouTube. I see how my sweet nieces and nephews turn into damn zombies watching it. It sucks. They lose their energy and fun. They are addicts. Now, some of it is getting their way, but I will be frank, some of it is their parents being lazy asses and giving them a tool that takes away social interaction and rationality.

The fact that this poor kid has a disorder and he is rewarded by being allowed to veg out on a phone in a way that makes normal kids get ADD or other disorders.

The excuse of “he was using my phone” is more an indictment of parents, even adoptive ones like her, busy with work and life, looking for a quick way to entertain kids at a cost to basic development to be honest. Yes, you can’t entertain your kids all the damn time, but someone in his position should not be saddled with another way to be even more impacted.

I dealt with parents and kids at the bank. Kid buys $1500 worth of shit on some game on the phone and the parent “didn’t approve it.”

But you did when you put your kid on your phone, or if they had a separate phone, put your card on it for them to charge! This led to a lot of crazy conversations over the years at BofA.

I walk around with 3 phones. At one point, it used to be a byproduct of keeping shit on one phone I was not proud of (whether it was porn, or messages to other people, or whatever) and my normal phone was clean, although, my normal phone has stains of me being an idiot on it as well. I now carry 3 phones for business purposes. I write at games I cover with stats on one phone updating me or when I travel, the second phone is my navigating phone to maintain a full battery on the other phone.

Parents, if you must saddle your kids with a burden of not knowing how to talk to people when they are adults, saddle them with a burden of finding the dirtiest damn porn at an early age to warp their minds (like to be honest I was even though I grew up sans internet until I was 14) or get radicalized to things that may cause them to lead scary lives later in life, then get them their own phone, as to not let them accidentally charge stuff to your phone. Simple as that.

Get them a burner phone. Verizon prepaid or something. You can get a decent phone for $50, and minus putting on minutes on the phone, you can basically use it as a tablet (hell, just buy them a tablet) to play games and bullshit on YouTube. You don’t have to put credit cards on it, and they can be in la la land forever, not interacting with you or friends forever, and your money will be safe.

I love my wife, but I don’t want her looking at my phone. I currently have nothing on it that would have to be explained, but there’s something to privacy. When I help my wife navigate the cash back apps, and I need to use her phone, I cringe even though she doesn’t care and likely has nothing to hide as well. It’s just so private in my opinion.

Giving your kids a tool that may have access to you being “bad,” your bank information or anything that can be used as collateral against you, is a bad idea.

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Finally, I decided to write about this story because as someone who listened to clues for 15 years, I pride myself in hearing what everyone says out loud. You learn a lot about people on how they carry themselves and tell stories.

When I heard the mom on a local TV interview, and subsequent interviews on GMA and other shows, she strikes me as a person who embiggens (to use a Simpsons word) stories to make her or who she loves the embattled fighter against a world that has it out for her.

This video from Canada has her talking about “How she felt something was off before she went to church, so she checked her Bank Account (???)”

Then she mentions “ARGUING WITH AMAZON”
Again, what did Amazon do aside from fulfilling her order as requested like they do all the damn time?

Then I read this USA Today article:
A few hours later, she stopped a second delivery driver from dropping off more candy.

“I went flying out the door and met the woman at the door screaming ‘Don't take those out of your van,’” LaFavers recalled, adding that she was thankful she caught the second delivery driver so she could reject the remaining eight boxes of lollipops.

She mentions there that she CAUGHT a delivery driver before she could take out the 8 boxes of lollipops and “SHE WAS SCREAMING ‘Don’t take those out of your van.’” which likely caused the issue with locating them later on as she mentioned in the KY news story “they were allegedly scanned at this post office return to sender.”

Umm.. yeah, because you said yourself you didn’t want them and some poor mail lady had to hear you scream to not give you the mail that was yours and had to weirdly return to sender in an unorthodox way that shit was going to go sideways.

But when she got the attention for the story of how crazy it was, she could not keep her stories straight. Every link I shared to you has inconsistencies with the other stories. It’s not the reporters. It’s her.

The problem with “going viral” on a story is that normal customer service or lack thereof, and normal problem handling gets bastardized. It actually muddles how normal problem handling should be. Do companies get it right all the time? No. But even Amazon, when they got away from the Indian call center employees trying to handle a distraught Kentucky lady who had an “oh shit” moment with something that even though she didn’t think could happen, did, had a PR moment where an American spokesperson had a statement mentioning a refund of her money:

Eventually, Amazon agreed to refund the full amount of Liam's order. The company confirmed the refund to ABC News Tuesday, saying in a statement, "We're glad we were able to work directly with this customer to turn a sticky situation into something sweet."

Jesus, what a lame PR Pun.

They knew that internet celebrity status is undefeated… but how about the company who sold the candy? Is it a Hallmark moment for them?

But because of how this ended the way it did, it only emboldens people to call people out on the biggest stages rather than understand companies have processes, and even though the third party company says “NO REFUNDS” places like Amazon have methods to troubleshoot weird problems like this. So do banks.

I think the mom reveled in the spotlight, and if she did raise awareness for this disorder the son has, then that is great too, but at the same time, there’s a reason some people should not be a spokesperson, and her inconsistent story tells me that should not be her.

But this country has a serious problem with blasting companies and customer service without context to get their way, even when the companies did nothing out of the ordinary, and it’s only getting worse with every phone in some customer reps face.

The biggest life lesson this mom can teach her kid is to not act like her when things are sideways. Understand there are processes, and although tedious at times, they are there to work correctly, not “YELL AS LOUD AS YOU CAN UNTIL IT IS FIXED!!!!” Because then that is…”R” word.

I just saw a FB post where the mom and son are getting invited to the Dum Dums factory for a tour

Meeting the head Dum Dum as well. Why? Because this is like millions in free advertising for a candy that you can’t really advertise on TV.

Gifting a lapse in parental judgment and a very irregular way to fix things. America.

Years ago, I realized the power of lollipops because I lost bonus money because of my bank’s unwillingness to pay for them. Today, I realize the power in them again. They were there for a life lesson not taught, and a poor lessson, treat everyone like the enemy until you get your money back, and free suckers, and possibly more money from selling the suckers, and a free trip to Dum Dums HQ that was hit home by a mom to her kid who needs more positive lessons.

This is not a happy story. I’m no sucker.

James

P.S. - If you feel the need to comment on this thing that took me 2 days to research and write and not have anything of note other than “I don’t like it,” save it. This one was for me. For research. For listening to people intently like I was trained to do, love to do for years.

I wish mom and kid well, but seriously don’t let it happen again. Not the suckers thing, but the “bully your way into getting your way” thing.