"Sit down," she said.

I thought she was going to tell me she had just gotten the haircut from hell. I laughed and said, "It can't be that bad."

But it was. Before the phone call I had 30 years of retirement savings in a "safe" fund with a brilliant financial guru. When I put down the phone, my savings were gone and my genius financial guru, Bernie Madoff, was in handcuffs. I felt as if I had died and, for some unknown reason, was still breathing.

Since Madoff's arrest in December on charges of running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme, I've read many articles about how we Madoff investors should have known what was going on, how believing in Madoff was no different than believing there were WMD in Iraq. And I wish I could say I had reservations about Madoff before "the Call." I wish I could say I knew better about getting such consistently good returns, but I did not. Besides, everything I "knew better" about -- stocks, smart financial advisors, real estate -- had also proved disastrous: Our financial advisor embezzled a quarter of our money 10 years ago, I lost another third in the stock market during the boom times, and we bought our house at the top of the market and sold at the bottom. Considering that, Madoff seemed like a respite -- his fund showed occasional losses, along with small, steady gains. (I'm keeping a list of people who want to be notified of our next investment so they can sprint in the other direction. Feel free to add your name.)

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