I Believe

“Unexpected Surprises”

By: Lizbeth Urquizo

We see things on the news and are informed on how to prevent certain events from happen to us, yet we never seem to actually pay attention. So

me people learn that they need to pay attention to the advice they get while others are to ignorant to think that it would happen to them. I’m bringing this up because I was one of those people that didn’t think it would happen to them, I was ignorant.

It was May 13, 2017 when it happened. My mom, sister Maria and I were cleaning the house because we had planned a party since I had just recently done my Confirmation. At around 12:00 p.m in the afternoon we get a phone call. It wasn't just any phone call, it was from the electricity company. My mom confused, since none of us knew why they would call, answered the phone. Little did we all know that the phone call was going to be the start of the lesson we all learned.

When my mom answers the phone we were greeted with a voice. The voice belongs to a man, he says that he needs to speak to Catarino Urquizo, which is my dad. During that time my dad was at work, so my mom says that he is not there right now but, that she is his wife so they can tell her the reason on why they are calling. The man proceeded to my mom that my dad is behind some bills so, in 30 minutes someone from the company will go and disconnect the electricity. My mom, sister and I are surprised to hear this since we know how my dad has always been responsible since in the last 20 years of him living here in the United States he has never been late with bills. My mom asks if he wants my dad’s phone number so they can communicate with him. The man responds that instead he will give us a number so when my dad is available he can call that number so we can find a way to fix this. My mom calls my dad informing him of what had just happened. He says that when he gets home he will try to fix this since right now he is busy with work.

Time goes by, specificity those 30 minutes go by. We still somehow have electricity. Don’t get wrong I was thankful that we still had the electricity but, I was mentally preparing myself to when our electricity is cut off. Two hours go by and we still have everything running. My dad arrives and immediately he asks where is that number that the guy had left. He calls and the guy answers they immediately talk into details on how my dad can fix this.

The man on the other side of the phone tells my dad a huge story on why the payments might not have been going through, and it sounds believable. In the end my dad had to buy prepaid cards. On thing everyone should know is that electricity companies don't accept prepaid cards. We ended up finding out that it was all fake, the phone call from the electricity company was fake, my dad being behind electricity bills was fake, it was all fake. We had just been tricked into giving about $1,000 to what we thought would save our electricity. My dad ended up filing a police report so it would raise an awareness that things like this were happening.

We never thought that it would happen to us. We heard about it on the news but never really paid attention. For a moment we were angry, angry because of how we missed the red flags, but we realized something. We realized that we would be okay, someone stealing money from us is better than one of us getting hurt.

I grew up with the motto expect the unexpected. I had never really thought about the meaning of it, now I do. “Expect the unexpected” means that we need to be aware and prepared of the unexpected surprise that will happen in life. That is why I believe in expecting the unexpected to happen so, when something does happen, it hopefully won’t hurt me as much as I anticipate it too.