When all other categories fail (or absentmindedly forget to be assigned), General Cerebral Leakage, fresh off his third tour of duty in the war against wise insurance providers, steps in to save the day!
Marriage can be hard, but sometimes it’s a lot harder than it has to be.
‘Specially when one of ya has something that rhyme’s with ‘ABCD’…
“What the hell did you do???”
I stared blankly back at My Beautiful Bride of almost 10 months, who had just come in the door after working the night-shift at the hospital.
“Why are you still awake???” she continued, clearly trying to make sense of the what she was seeing.
“Um, well…” I proffered her the suspicious-looking braided cable I had been holding in my hands.
“You were supposed to be sleeping–you have to drive almost 3 hours! And all you have to say for yourself is to hold up that?? I don’t even know what that is!”
It was becoming apparent that she was not pleased with the scene that had greeted her after spending a very draining 10 hours on her feet dealing with sick people.
“And what is this bloody mess? If I could, I would march right on over there and beat yo’ ass senseless!”” she said incredulously, waving her hand about the room.
I cast my eyes downward and said nothing.
“Is it…? No, it couldn’t be! Tell me that you didn’t just do what I think you did” she uttered in dismay as she slowly pieced together why I was sitting on the floor in our office, surrounded by a sea of body parts at 7 in the morning.
“I swear, it’s not what it looks like, Babe!”
I never thought that those words would be coming out of my mouth, yet here we were.
“Oh, really? Look me in the eye and tell me you haven’t been up all night engaged in wanton dismemberment. And don’t lie to me!”
Instead of looking her in the eye, I averted my gaze to what was around me. Truly surveying the carnage for the first time sobered me up a little bit for the first time all night.
“Ok, so I’ll admit that my impulses may have gotten a wee bit out of control,” I begrudgingly admitted, perhaps not being completely honest with myself.
“I thought…I thought I could trust you…but I leave you to your own devices for a few hours, and you go and do this…”
She trailed off as tears started to well up in her eyes.
“What kind of man have I married?” she sniffled to herself.
“Um, well…”
“A grown-ass man with ADHD.”
That–that–my friend, is this correct answer to the question ruefully posed by the Love of My Life–the Mother of My Children, the Woman I Call My Wife, yadda yadda ya–on what was supposed to be the beginning of our first romantic getaway since our Honeymoon.
But you probably could understand that she didn’t see things that way on that fateful October morning back in 2008–indubitably because it would be over 16 years before I would even consider that to be a likely explanation for the horror that had transpired overnight.
You might say that my unbridled desire to, um, ‘get around’ was being, uh, err, ‘frustrated’. And when she had left for work that night before we were due to head off to a cabin the mountains, I saw my chance to scratch that itch and so I took matters into my own hands, so to speak.
Honestly, I couldn’t exactly tell you what was going through my mind, as I don’t remember most of that night clearly, the whole thing being a haze clouded by my raging urges.
And it’s not that I want to avoid taking responsibility for my actions, but the truth is that my ADHD mind made it really hard to exercise good judgement, and in the end I just took things too far. Go ahead and look it up: the mental wirings of ADHDers like me are fundamentally different from that of the so-called ‘neuro-typical’ population, and we have been scientifically proven to be largely driven by the dopamine circuits in our brains.
If you don’t know what that means off the top of your head, dopamine in mammals is considered to be one of the primary chemicals responsible for that oh-so-satisfying feeling of reward.
To put even more in layman’s terms: it is also strongly associated with low impulse control and addictive behavior.
Yeah, that’s a big ol’ ‘Uh-oh…’ alright.
And, just like the night in question, so many times in our almost-an-adult1In the sense that we have been married coming up on 18 years. marriage has my ADHD impacted our relationship negatively.
That really adds up in the long-haul, believe you me.
The good news is that at least it’s not a character flaw on my part. I swear, I’m not a bad person.
Nevertheless, it is important that I recognize the marital issues that I have brought to the table in this holy union of ours, regardless of whether it was intentional or not.
Therefore, this Valentine’s Day, I want share a very special message for that very special woman who has been legally and morally obliged to deal with all my nonsense this whole time:
*Turns to the right and solemnly looks into Camera 2*
“Babe, if you’re listening (though I doubt you are), I just wanted to say that your love and tolerance in the midst of all my neuro-divergent bullsh*t is wholly undeserved, and it is humbling to think that you still find me worthy to be called your hubby.
I am deeply sorry, my PunkinHead for all the stress and drama that I have unnecessarily caused you over the years, and I hope that with our newfound understanding of who I am on a biochemical level, and the insights, frameworks, and toolboxes that come with opening ourselves to the ADHD world, I can help relieve you of many of the immense burdens I have saddled you with.
In conclusion, my Love, my ‘Meatheart’, it is my hope–nay, my promise–that you will never ever come home again to discover that I have stayed up all night completely disassembling my moped just because I wanted to fix a turn signal that didn’t work and decided I needed to understand how the entire piece of machinery functioned while I was at it.
…
…though, for the record, 1) I really thought I could have had it reassembled before you got off work; and 2) I did successfully diagnose and repair it and put it all back together eventually. So…you know…it wasn’t entirely lost cause…”
Wait, what’s that, Dear Reader?
You thought that’s what I was talking about? Man, you really do have a twisted and dark mind don’t you?
And what kind of monster do you think I am anyways? Where the hell did you get that idea from?
Huh? What’s that you say? Look up…up…up. no up higher?
Oh, the title said what??
Um, yeah, that one’s kinda on me. It was supposed to say scooter–“the SCOOTER in the night time.”
Uh, hee-hee. *Gulp* My bad.
But seriously, you thought I had murdered and dismembered a prostitute, didn’t you?
Anyways…the point of the story is Happy Valentine’s Day!
…
Hmmm…now that I go back and re-read this, maybe it’s better that my love doesn’t read my little blog…
Me: “What’ll it take to get YOU to take this car off my hands?!”
Carlos: “A boat, a plane, PoA, a fake addie, a thousand clams.” Me: “Damn…”
“So, you’re telling me I’m stuck with a car that’s going to be stuck on this ----- island, even though I’ll be long gone??”
I couldn’t believe what the customer service rep from Honda Financial was telling me: I had a big problem, and there wasn’t any solution that could save my bacon.
“Unfortunately, sir, that is correct. You signed a 3-year lease, and it’s only been 2 years, so you’ll need to make 13 more payments before Pacific Honda will take the car back,” she kindly informed me, confirming my worst fears.
“Let’s see…with a monthly payment of about $500…jeez, that’s about $6500 that we don’t have! Have we no other options?” I asked desperately. “Can we transfer the lease to somebody else at least?”
“No sir, the lease is non-transferable,” she replied.
“Seriously, though? Your company has never ran into this problem before? You finance cars that are, by default, going to be stuck in Hawai’i, and you don’t have any mechanism for the indubitable plethora of people who end up having to move away before there lease is up?”
I was simply aghast that they had no way out for folk like me. I mean, when we had signed that 3-year lease 2 years earlier, we were fresh off the boat from the mainland, and had sincerely expected to spend at least the next 3 years in Honolulu while I settled into my first real job as a doctor at the local hospital.
(Quick side bar: let me rephrase that last sentence, because upon re-reading, while 100% accurate, is incredibly misleading. I had just obtained my doctorate degree in physics, and had landed a post-doc job with the University of Hawai’i doing MRI research. And though I worked for the University of Hawai’i…
((Uh-oh! Another side-side bar: I didn’t technically work for the University of Hawai’i, I worked for ‘the Research Corporation of the University of Hawai’i, which, in spirit, was meant to reduce the red tape that normally comes with working for a state university for those that didn’t necessarily serve any academic function. Ironically, it had the exact opposite effect, and my colleagues and I would often joke that what was really needed was yet another literal ‘shell corporation’: the Research Corporation of the Research Corporation of the University of Hawai’i. Either way, it made for an incredible headache for any situation, whether legal or casual, where we had to answer the question ‘where do you work/who do you work for?’ End of side-side bar))
Anyways, UH wasn’t exactly teeming with their own MRI machines, so it made sense that the MRI research lab be located in the annex at Queen’s Hospital, where we could offset costs by pausing our research activities to scan actual hospital patients at pre-appointed times on certain mornings. All that to say, yes, I was technically a doctor, and I was technically working in a hospital, but 1) I’m not that kind of doctor, 2) those two facts had almost nothing to do with each other, and 3) I definitely wasn’t making the salary you would have expected upon hearing me uttering the original sentence in question. End of side bar)
Whew! It was way too early in the story for such a digression, so I must profusely apologize–however, you will soon see how such a parenthetical phrase (one that even contained it’s own child parenthetical phrase–and thus putting the parent in parenthetical–no less) is pretty on-brand for the theme of this week’s little dissertation of mine.
*Ahem*
As I was saying, we had originally not thought twice about signing a 3-year lease when we moved to Hawai’i, and I don’t even think they offered a shorter lease option. But that all changed when a little over a year into our island adventure we got pregnant with The Elder (our oldest daughter, if you hadn’t already jumped to that correct conclusion), and upon her birth, soon realized that being half a Pacific Ocean plus a full continent away from family was not going to be an option. Especially when she was going to be my in-laws first grandchild altogether!
So we found ourselves with what should have been the trivial task of selling our vehicle before moving back to North Carolina. After all, it didn’t make much sense to spend $4k-$6k to ship back a car that we would have to continue to make $500/month payments on, right? And then, once the lease was up, we would have to buy out the remainder of what was owed on the car. It’s not like we would spend another $4k-$6k just to ship it back to the dealer in Hawai’i, right?
In the midst of trying to come up with a solution, I had even tried to convince one of my co-workers who had had his car stolen (again–it’s surprisingly common on Oahu), that he could take our car, and we would split the payments until the lease was up. While that arrangement was slightly fraught, paying $3k and helping a friend out was actually not the worst option, given our situation…
“Well, technically you could sell the car…”
Wait, what? What’s that the Honda Financial rep just said?!? I about tripped and fell off the top of the parking garage across from the hospital, the only place at work where I could get good enough reception to make the call in the first place.
“Ok, cool, I can just sell the car. Why didn’t you just say that to begin with?”
Dead silence.
“Hello, Honda Financial rep? Are you still there?” I thought my 1 hour, 13 minute call (thus far) had been inconveniently disconnected, and I would have to start this nonsense all over again.
“I’m here, sir,” replied the voice on the other end of the line. “It’s just…uh…it’s not exactly a so-called ‘straight-forward process’, so we only tell customers about it once they’ve exhausted all other options.”
“Well, I would say that all our options are tired and exhausted. Why don’ you go ahead and walk me through the process?”
“Ok, then, if you insist,” she replied hesitantly. “In order to sell the car, you have to legally own the car.”
“Yeah, that part makes sense, I guess. How do I go about doing that?”
“Well, in order to legally own the car, you need to buy the car.”
“Wait, so I have to buy my own car, then sell it? That seems a little Twilight-Zonish. Whatever. I hate to ask this, but how do I go about buying it?”
“You have to pay off the remaining balance, which is…oh, okay, looks to be a little over $17,000.”
“What the hell? I don’t have $17k just sitting around!”
“Well, sir, the balance owed on the car needs to be paid off, and then Honda Financial will send you the title, which then can be transferred to the new owner,” she advised.
“Arghh. Some ‘solution’ this is. Thanks for nothing,” I bemoaned, lamenting my sorry situation.
“Maybe not all hope is lost yet, sir. What people typically do is have the new buyer send the money straight to Honda Financial instead of paying the seller.”
“Oh. Ok. So I just have to convince some poor sap to send a huge check to pay off a car in my name, trusting that I’ll be gracious enough to give them the title once I get it. No, this doesn’t have ‘sketchy’ written all over it…”
“Dang it, it’s Carlos II texting me again. That dude keeps trying to low-ball us.”
My Beautiful Bride and I were trying to get in one last hurrah on Oahu’s North Shore,1Or perhaps it was the one time that summer I took our nanny, aka my mother, up there? and our moment of Zen was being interrupted by a text that simply stated ‘would you take $15.5 for the Accord?’
Now given that we owed $17k on the car, I had been posting it on Craigslist for $18k, hoping to make a little extra cash for the move, ya know? But this dude, who, for some reason was (and still is, lol) in my phone as ‘Carlos II’–if I recall correctly, the only other person who had shown interest in buying it was also named Carlos–had originally only wanted to pay $15k even. I had almost laughed at his first offer, but after almost 3 weeks of trying to off-load this incredible financial burden, I was starting to realize that we might be looking at taking a loss to the tune of a couple thousand smackers, instead of coming out in the positive.
Given that Carlos II was interested enough to text me again, and offer slightly more in the process, gave me a glimmer of hope of actually at least selling it.
“Well, that’s still a little low. Could you do $16.5?” I texted back. I think I could live with losing only $500 to be done with the whole fiasco.
Not too much later I got a reply back:
“Can’t go all the way up to $16.5. Still need to spend about $400-500 to ship it to Maui. I can do $16k, though. Final offer.”
Dammit. Ok, fine, whatever. But I would need the Boss Lady’s approval.
“Hey, babe, it looks like our best and only real offer for this ol’ hunk of metal is $16k. That’s still a thousand short of–“
I didn’t even get to finish the sentence.
“Don’t be a damned fool! Take his offer and be done with it! We have less than 2 weeks to get rid of it, and you think something better is going to come along?!?”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right…”
“How soon can he meet you to seal the deal?”
“Um…good question. Oddly enough, he mentioned something about having to ship the car to Maui. Now he tells us he’s not even on the same ----- island??”
“He inconveniently just happens to live on Maui? Nooooo, that doesn’t sound sketchy at all…”
“Ok, Carlos II, you’re plot twist was that you live on Maui. Well, we have a little plot twist for you,” I said, but not in those blunt of terms.
“Um, ok…” said the voice on the other end of the line.
“We don’t actually own the car yet, we gotta buy out the lease first. So here’s what’s gonna happen. Whenever you fly your ass on over here to Oahu to get the car and put it on the boat to Maui, you and I are going to go…”
*approximately 5 minutes of indiscernible mutterings*
“…okay, I’ll need to send an email to myself with all those logistical details, so I can also send it you. Sound good, Carlos II?”
“Well, I don’t know if it sounds ‘good’. It sounds a little sketchy to me, honestly, but you sound like an honest guy, and it is a pretty good deal for a 2011 Accord…let’s just say it sounds ‘good enough’, yeah?”
For you, Dear Reader (or technically ‘for your reference’), here is a screen shot of the actual email that I had to send to myself just to make sure the multi-phase plan went off without a hitch. I mean, one little mis-step, and the whole thing could blow up (one thing you can’t see in the screenshot is the date of the email, which was only 6 days before we were leaving the island for good!).
So, basically what would happen is that I would pick his car-buying-and-shipping ass up at HNL and chauffeur him to a local branch of his bank, wherein he could get a money order for $16,000, and we could also get free notary services for the 3 or 4 forms also listed there. We would then walk or drive ~5 city blocks to the post office, where it would be shipped in the most official manner you can buy. The next step would be to go the port where the car would be loaded on the Maui-bound boat. I think it’s implied by this point My Beautiful Bride had joined us in our remaining vehicle, lol. After that, we take him back to the airport, and she takes me back to work. Like I said, very straight-forward.
A few days later, I drove our beloved Accord to work one last time (*sniff!*), and cut out over lunch to enact our not-complicated-in-the-least plan.
Fortunately, it all went as smoothly as one could hope, though I recall having a little trouble finding either the bank or the post office…
“So, this is good-bye?” I said to our Accord later on, after safely loading it on the boat.
My hand lingered on the side of it as I walked away from it one last time, on my way to meet Carlos II who had come from the shipping office to meet up with me.
“Hey man, is that a scratch on the trunk?!?” he said, pointing at the tiniest of blemishes.
Ah, hell, nah. Not today Satan, not today.
“Dude, it’s too late for that non-sense. It’s not like either of us can back out of the deal now, even if we wanted to. Besides, even I had no clue it was there. I’m sure you’ll get used to it.”
“Ugh. Fine. Okay.”
“Now let’s hop in the car and get your butt on a plane back to Maui.”
“Yeah, let’s get our of here. It sure will be nice to be done with The World’s Most Straight-Forward Transaction Ever.”
“Well, almost done,” I begrudgingly corrected him.
“Ah, right…almost…”
“Alright, it looks like we’re almost done with the approval stage of your mortgage application, sir…”
“Wonderful!” I prematurely interjected, interrupting our mortgage agent.
“I said almost done. Oh, we’re not quite to the ‘wonderful!’ stage just yet, though.”
“Oh. Ok. What’s up?”
“There seems to be a few discrepancies that came up on your credit report and other records that threw some red flags. We’ll need you to submit a Letter of Explanation for the following: 1) In 8/2011, your address shows up as 1356 Lusitana St., 7th Floor, Honolulu…”
“Oh, that. Right. When we moved to Hawaii, it was almost a month in between our old permanent address and our new one there. I had to have a valid address on file in order to be able to use my credit cards, so I had to use the mailing address of my new job. Awkward, I know.”
“Um, yeah, sounds sketchy. But, you don’t have to convince me. Save it for the Letter of Explanation.”
“No, I was just saying…ya know…there’s a reasonable explanation and what-not…”
“Anyways, what is much more concerning is that in 9/2013, our records indicate you were living in…Maui?”
“Maui?!? I’ve never even been to Maui!”
“Yup. That red flag seems justified, now doesn’t it?”
“Oh, wait, I remember now! I sold a car to some guy named Carlos II and…well, nevermind. I’ll save it for the letter.”
“They guy’s name is actually ‘Carlos II’? Are you just making up names of fake Hawaiian kings? Nooooo, that doesn’t sound sketchy at all…”
The point of the story is…well, more accurately, the rest of the story is that Carlos II and I had one last logistical hurdle to jump over after our grand romantic day spent together: how to get the lease into his hands, and how to subsequently get it into his name.
Remember all those forms that I had listed that needed notarizing? Well, most of them were tackling this problem. Irregardless of how he got the physical copy of the title, we wouldn’t be around to sign it over to him–thus, we had to give that fool Power of Attorney for us. But it solved that problem at least.
And getting it to him? Well, he wasn’t patient enough for us to get it in NC, and then mail it 1/4 of the way back across the planet to him in Maui. And we had already stretched the amount of trust he could put in a stranger–case in point: the very last thing he said to me before I dropped him off at the airport? And I quote, “this all seemed so suspicious, I almost wasn’t going to show up…”
I needed to do him as much of a solid as I could, so I called up Honda Financial, and had them change my address on file to Carlos II’s. Then, once Carlos II’s $16k cashier’s check, along with our $1,203.79 cashier’s check, were both received and deposited, they would send the title to “me” in Maui, where he could use the POA we had signed to be “me” and at long last sign the deed over to his self.
…and now you know, Dear Reader, why the credit world thinks that we suspiciously lived in Maui for only a month. Of course, I had to proceed to try to state this succinctly and honest-sounding as I could for the mortgage people. That was no easy task.
But really the point of the story is, as you can clearly see, despite the incredibly overly-complicated explanation I have to give–yet another asterisk in my life, just like Lloyd P. Fletcher, et al–I promise you, hand on my heart, I am not a crook.
“Dear Taimi and Hubert,1As I will explicitly state in 2 seconds, that’s not my real name. Thank you, so very much, for your continued support of WUNC as a Sustainer…”
A few years ago, this email showed up in my inbox (or should I say Lloyd P. Fletcher’s inbox?). At first I thought I was looking at just another quick notel from our local NPR radio station, thanking us for the meager support we throw their way every month. Nothing seemed out of sorts…at first. Now, before you can loudly point out the obvious, let me be clear: it was addressed to my actual first name, not “Hubert”–a name I just made up to protect my precious privacy. Nay, what caught my attention was the other name: ‘Taimi’.
Like, is that even a real name? Frankly, it sounds made up to me. Or maybe somebody had a stroke as they were trying to enter in the name of My Beautiful Bride? Though her name is nothing at all close to that, so that theory quickly got set aside.
So, why the hell was my good name associated with this Taimi character? I was just too curious, so of course I took to the Googles to see what I could unearth on this fraud.
I typed in ‘Taimi Henderson’–not my real last name, of course–and the first result that popped up was from the Smithsonian Archives. Whoever she was, this Taimi has won the Girl’s division of the 1956 National Science Fair. I was already intrigued; now I was also impressed. I mean anybody who can show up and show out at a science fair competition–on any level–has already earned my respect. Of all my accomplishments, that was for sure one thing I never could quite nail (if you’re wondering what I’m talking about, you can get caught up here) .
Moving on to the second result, I clicked on a link to the NC Modernist’s website. Turns out, a local home that has a bit of historical modern architecture is named after Taimi…and Hubert Henderson–wha?!? There’s a house named after me?? Again, it was under my real name, not that fake chump, Hubert Henderson’s.
“Wait just a tick!” I said to myself. “That house was built in 1973! I was negative 7 years old that year–there’s no way that house could be named after me!”
A sat for moment, absorbing the always-obvious fact that Taimi was probably married to some other dope that happened to share the name “Hubert Henderson” with me.
And then I felt incredibly stupid, when I realized that this wasn’t the first–or even second!–time that I had been mistaken for the wrong Hubert Henderson. Or, I probably should use our proper common name: Dr. Hubert Henderson…
“Hi Tiajuana,2Not her real name. Thank you so much for your help! I’m trying to determine if Dr. Henderson still uses 681-xxxx. If this number is no longer needed, then I can delete the menu entry under General Surgery and reclaim it?”
I quickly glanced at the email that had been forwarded to me by Tiajuana, the administrative person for my lab at Puke University/Puke Hospital–not it’s real name, of course, as we need to protect the identity of the my place of work which happens to be begrudgingly associated with a certain college basketball team that makes me want to, well, puke…oh, sorry for the minor digression.
I didn’t give the email much thought, because as is with most things in my life, my work phone number situation wasn’t exactly straight-forward. It didn’t help that I almost never used my work phone, so I didn’t really keep track of it. It didn’t help that where I actually sat my scientific ass on the days I went into work was in a completely different building than where the office where my work computer was. Since all the co-workers that I ever needed to interact with were in the Murine MRI department, I would squat at whatever Apple computer I could find and remotely use my work computer, which hung out with the Human MRI people in a building up the hill.
So, I was tasked of finding out where this mystery phone number rang to, and if I still needed it for any reason at all. I could first eliminate my current physical workspace, since 1) there was no reason why any of those numbers should have been officially assigned to me, and 2) a quick round of peeking at all the landlines in my current and surrounding cubicles confirmed that none of them even shared the 681- prefix.
Maybe it was the phone in my office where my computer was? Now, I have to explicitly state “where my computer was”, because–you guessed it–that wasn’t officially my office either. When my supervisor started working with human subjects, and thus became a part of the Human MRI department, they naturally gave her her own office…one that she had no real use for since she already had her own well-established office amongst the mice and rats.
Originally, my official office was a shared workspace for post-docs (one of which I was no longer at that point, interestingly enough–I had ‘graduated’ to Research Scholar), but for some reason the local IT peoples had put a worthless Windows computer at my desk, so of course I was never there because all the real work had to be done on an Apple. And also, when my supervisor pretty much gifted me her unused office, I relocated my operations to that private location in which I could take a power nap under the desk if I so needed it.
All that to say, I’m pretty sure I had officially added the phone number for one of those two locales to my official work email signature.
*Checks notes*
Nope! That was a 684-prefix, and come to think of it, I don’t think I ever had phone at my officially assigned work space. How the hell was this enigmatic phone number ever associated with my good name?!?
It was at this point that I actually went back and read the email carefully.
“Oh…right. Department of Surgery,” I noted to myself. “I think I’m in the Department of Radiology–though my place in the organizational hierarchy chart has always been really ----- confusing ever since entering the field of MRI.”
I pondered the situation for a moment, double-checking my grasp on reality.
“Okay, I may not know for sure if I work for the School of Medicine or the Department of Radiology or who-knows-what department here in the Puke University Health System, but I do know that I’m not in the Department of Surgery.”
“Wait just a tick!” I said aloud. “I’ve just gone down this asinine rabbit hole, chasing my rabbit tail trying to figure out all the phone numbers associated with my good name, and all along we’ve all been barking up the wrong ‘Dr. Hubert Henderson’ phone tree…”
“Dammit, out of 20 pieces of mail addressed to Dr. Hubert Henderson, none of them are actually addressed to me.”
I sighed a mildly melodramatic sigh. I had checked my work mailbox–which, like my work phone number, has gone completely unused with the rarest of exceptions–for the first time since the pandemic had started. I was originally surprised that to find so much mail in my box, until I soon realized that, for some mysterious reason, I was getting most of the mail addressed to any and all ‘Dr. Hubert Hendersons’ within in the Puke hospital system.
Again, I turned to my old friend, the Googles, to investigate why I was receiving all written correspondence directed to my doppelnämer, Dr. Hubert W. Henderson (for comparison, I’m Dr. Hubert J. Henderson–and yes, that’s my real middle initial).
Well, you can imagine what type of article might be returned upon searching ‘Dr. Hubert Henderson Puke University’…an obituary. And it turns out that my erstwhile name-sharer and co-worker-by-the-loosest-definitions had shed this mortal coil and passed on to the Great Beyond where all Dr. Hubert Hendersons are destined to go.
And what I discovered from his obituary was that for once, it was me that was dragging a good common name through the mud. I mean, the lowered all the flags at the hospital when my man passed on, for heaven’s sake!
Anyways, that quickly solved the Mystery of The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Work Mail. And also the aforementioned The Bobbsey Twins and the Mystery of Who’s ----- Phone Number Is This?
Out of curiosity, I decided to see if there was any important mail that I might be morally obligated to notify the send of dear Dr. Hubert Hendersons timely demise.
“Nope…nope…nope…maybe, but I don’t have the energy…nope, nope, nope, and nope…”
“But wait? Hark! What’s this? *Ahem*:”
“Dear Dr. Hubert Henderson: as a respected and experienced member in your field, the National Association of Cardiac Surgeons invites you to fill out a quick survey. In exchange for your valued opinion and insight, we would gratefully compensate you with a $200 pre-paid Visa gift card…”
*Looks around suspiciously*
“Well, I am legally Dr. Hubert Henderson, after all…”
It’s the end of the year, and of course we gots to take a look back.
You better buckle up , Bud, ‘cuz you are in for a ton of fun, Jack…
Greetings and salutations! If you’re just tuning in, we just wrapped up 2024 and put a big-ass bow on it, placing it under the Christmas tree, hoping to forgot about it forever…
Well, actually I won’t get into the debate of whether it was a great year or the shittiest one on record. ‘Round here I like to keep things focused on the little picture, and while 2024 saw me transition from weekly musings to bi-weekly blabbings, I must say I had fun telling some of the stories that I have this year. Now the question is, will you enjoy reading them as much as I have enjoyed weaving them together? I sure hope so.
Looking back now, I kinda realize that I went off on primarily a handful of themes: technology and my love of candy, cheating–intentional and unintentional–and my on-going delve into all things identity fraud. Go ahead–click on any of the links to be taken to those particular collections (subject to me actually making those pages). In general, though, I suspect you came here to get a sampling of the best of the best of 2024 that The Point of the Story has to offer. Well, Dear Reader, you are in luck. Please, peruse below the highlights of what came forth from the loins of my mind in 2024.
Oh, and just for funsies, I injected the literary device of the unreliable narrator into my writings. If you come across one with the tag ‘Unreliable Narrator’ at the bottom, I invite you to read (or re-read) it with a suspicious eye. But then again, to you would I ever lie? [Obligatory elipsis ending…]
Nevermind For What Rascally Reasons–You’re Outstanding, Can’t You See, Son?
Nevermind For What Rascally Reasons–You’re Outstanding, Can’t You See, Son?
5Min Read
Has an unexpected interstate lawman come a-knockin’ at your door?
Demand they double-check–surely you ain’t the guy they’re looking for…
This is a warning to any kiddie-stalkers that look oddly like my friend, my dude:
You keep following those girls, and I swear I’ll end you…
“What’s up, dude?”
Little did I know just how close those three little words would come to unwittingly destroying several lives.
I had just come out of the local bookstore on the edge of our quaint little downtown, and stepped into a quagmire of foot traffic–people here, there, everywhere! It was our town’s annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony and other related festivities, and residents of all ages were enjoying holiday music courtesy of a various junior high bands, hot chocolate and other baked goods, visits to Santa, and all other assorted types of merriment.
Given the tidy crowd that had come out on this fine November afternoon, I wasn’t surprised when I saw three pre-teen girls from my kids’ school traipsing merrily past me.
And I was utterly delighted when just a few steps behind them was a blonde ponytail I’d recognize anywhere. ‘Twas none other than Adam, father of one of the girls–who we’ll call ‘L’–and one of my closer #DadFriends from the school!
He seemed to be intently watching the girls, and didn’t notice me coming out of the bookstore, so to get his attention, I uttered those three fateful words…
“What’s up, dude?”
As he turned towards me, I could tell Adam seemed a little surprised to hear someone whispering in his ear.
But by the time he had finally turned all the way around and determined that I was the one calling him ‘dude’, it was my turn to be even more surprised–it wasn’t Adam at all!
Admittedly, I was a little embarrassed, but c’mon! I swear the guy looked just like Adam from the side, plus I know for sure that had been his daughter passing by only moments earlier.
“Uh, oh, sorry man. I thought you were someone else,” I stammered.
Fortunately, Not-Adam was pretty cool about it.
“Oh, hah! It’s all good–no worries!” he said barely breaking pace to engage with me.
“Heh-heh…yeah, you totally looked like another guy I know. Again, my apologies,” I said, trying not to be too awkward about it.
I was headed in the same direction as Not-Adam, so I attempted to walk alongside him as we shared a little laugh over the case of mistaken identity.
“It’s funny, y’know?” he said as he barely took his eyes off something or someone just ahead of us. “I just thought you were talking on your Bluetooth or something.”
“Is that so?” I said, quickening my pace just to keep up with the guy.
“Yeah, you could have played the whole thing off like you were talking on the phone and I would have never been none the wiser,” he said, now very clearly distracted from our conversation.
He seemed to sense that I could tell his focus was elsewhere.
“Oh, sorry, I’m trying to keep an eye on those girls up there.”
What. The. ----- Dude? He’s just openly copping to being a creep?
“Come again?” I said, still taken aback by his brazen admission.
“Yeah, I can’t let them out of my sight. That’s my daughter and her two friends.”
I just kinda stared at him in disbelief. Was I taking crazy pills?!? This guy looked a lot like Adam, and now he’s claiming to be L’s dad–i.e. Adam? Had I slipped into a parallel timeline? What the hell was going on here???
“Oh. Is that so?” I said, trying to suss out what his deal was.
Either this guy was a grown up Changeling1Check out this Wikipedia article if you don’t know what a changeling is. Adam, or I just happened to stumble upon his Doppelgänger2Check out this Wikipedia article if you don’t know what a Doppelgänger is.…who–fun fact–turned out to be a pedophile (or ‘kiddie-fiddler’ for you Brits in the audience).
“Sorry, gotta run! Later, ‘dude’!” he said before suspiciously skittering in the direction of this 3 underage targets…
“You’re not her real dad, you sicko!”
I knew that I any pedo worth his grit would have said something like “uh, yeah, that pre-pubescent girl I’m following is…uh…she’s…uh…she’s my daughter! Yeah, she’s my daughter!”
This wasn’t the first time that some creep had been following around young girls in our beloved small-town downtown, but I wasn’t going to let this Not-Adam get away with it a second time!
A quick phone call to the proper authorities, and it was only a few minutes later before I was leading the local cops through the crowd trying to locate that pervert before he could get to his victims. And now, here we were with him pinned to the ground with his arms behind his back, cops swarming all over him like ants on rice, and me, with my righteous anger calling him out on his lies and deception.
“Hey! What’s going on here?” the sex offender protested. “I am too her real dad!”
“Officers, this man was about to violently attack 3 young girls in a dark alleyway, had it not been for my quick thinking and your heroic actions.”
“What are you even talking about? You are ----- insane, man!”
I must say, this guy was putting on an Oscar-worthy performance.
“Gentlemen of the law, this man was claiming to be the father of one of these girls–“
“Which I AM!” Chester the Molester interjected.
“I know her father–our kids are in the same class together–and while he even went to the great lengths of putting on a prosthetic rubber mask and ponytail wig to even look like him–he almost had even me fooled–I assure you: this man is an imposter!”
I had since given up on my highly implausible and rather ridiculous theories of a supernatural origin of Not-Adam, and was now presenting to law enforcement an explanation that was much more within the realm of reason.
“I swear to g0d, if you don’t get off me and let me go right now, I’ll sue the PBO police department into oblivion, along with this ----- delusional nut case,” the Kiddie-Fiddler-on-the-Roof seethed, gesturing at me.
“Officers of the court, if it pleases you, I will now reveal the true identity of this child predator!” I said grandiosely, firmly grasping the perv’s fake hair.
“This man in no Adam! Watch as I pull off his mask and reveal his true identity!”
“Sir, I don’t recom–” one of officer said, lunging in vain to stop me.
“Wait, who’s Ad–OWWWWWW!” the criminal yelped in agony at my first failed attempt to remove the wig and mask.
“Oh, you cheeky bastard, you’re real good. You must be using the facial glue that the Hollywood pros do. But it won’t stand up to my second attempt!” I proclaimed to the gathering crowd that included Santa and at least one elf, as I placed both hands this time on those almost-convincingly-real locks of the perp.
“Sir! Please don’t–” another officer said as he unwisely tried to intervene.
“SWEET BABY JEEEEEEEEEEEZUS! That ----- hurt. Somebody, please! Stop this madman before he rips out all my beautiful hair!” he cried.
The mask hadn’t come off just yet, but undeterred, I knew I was closer than ever to exposing this degenerate like I was Chris Hansen.
“Don’t be fooled, folks! Third time’s a–“
“DAD?!?”
One of the girls bust through the crowd.
“Don’t fall for it kid! This isn’t your dad–this is a fake Adam!” I said, guiding her away from the deception that abounded.
“Wait…who’s Adam?” she said.
“Wait…you’re not L…” I said.
“He’s my dad!” L said, gasping as she stumbled through a gap in the crowd behind the other girl.
“That’s what he’d like you to believe! But despite the impressive prosthetics and other fakery, trust me, Young Grasshopper, this guy ain’t your real dad!”
“No sh*t, Sherlock,” the mystery girl said. “He’s MY dad!”
“FOR F*CK’S SAKE!” cursed the Fake Adam on the ground. “Somebody tell me who Adam is???”
“Definitely not you, chump!” I said.
“And…?” YouLookLikeAnAdam said, waiting me to say something else.
“Wait…what? You’ve finally given up on claiming to be Adam?” I said after a beat.
“Hey, I never once said I was this mythical Adam! And frankly, the guy sounds made up to me…”
“He’s my dad!” L repeated herself.
“No, poor confused child, this man is not your dad!”
Dang, he really did have her fooled.
“Because he’s my dad!”
Now the other girl was repeating herself!
“Sweet girl, don’t confuse your pretty little head over this. We all know that Adam is not your dad,” I slightly condescended.
“Would somebody please listen to my daughter?!?” the guy moaned.
“Look, Buster, we all know that L isn’t really your daughter, so stop calling her that! We see right through your charade!”
“Huh?” L said. “Please leave me out of this hot mess.”
“Huh?” I said.
“He was talking about me, you ass-hat,” the other girl sassed.
“What?” Now my pretty little head was getting confused. “Who’s the ‘he’ you’re referring to? Adam?”
“What? No. Adam is her dad,” she said gesturing to L. “Why is my dad pinned to the ground by a police officer.”
“But I told you he’s an impost–“
I stopped short.
“Wait. What?”
“Sir,” the most imposing of the officers–the one who had been pinning the guy to the ground–now got up and turned his attention towards…me?
“We’re going to have to take you down to the station,” he continued. “Make false accusations of molestation and assaulting another man’s hair are serious offenses that you’ll need to answer to.”
“What? No! I did nothing wrong!” I protested, even as it slowly dawned on my dumb ass that maybe–just maybe–I was the one who had been confused this whole time.
“Sir…” the officer looked at me over the top his glasses and down his nose at me, a look that said, “We both know you’re full of shit.”
“So…what you’re saying is that there is no mask? No wig? No Scooby-Doo heroics to be had?”
“You’re free to go, Sir,” the officer said–but not to me.
“Just call me Lloyd…Lloyd P. Fletcher. And like I told you I’m her dad,” he said, glaring at me while gesturing to the other girl.
“Um…” was all I could muster, as I slowly died of embarrassment.
“Nice to meet you, asshole…”
So…fun fact: this story was pretty accurate, at least up until the police allegedly got involved.
Except, ’twas I that got mistaken for Adam, and not the other way around.
Let me tell you that side of the story:
So I show up to this whole tree-lighting thing with my daughter, who we’ll call ‘A’. A bunch of her old classmates from last year who are in junior high this year were selling baked goods at a booth, so we had to immediately make a bee-line for them.
Now, enter the third girl, who we’ll call ‘L.L. Bean’ just for the hell of it. L.L. is my baby’s bestie, and we know each other pretty well since she be hanging out at our house a lot and vice versa.
L.L. and her family had just got back from a trip overseas just a day or two before, so her overprotective parents were too jet-lagged to join her at the event, but dropped her off on her own on the condition that she have a trusted adult around at all times. Originally, the trusted adults were the teachers and other parents running the booth.
Seeing an opportunity for a bit of freedom to roam, L.L. explained her situation to me, and asked if I would be willing to tail her and A while they bantered about downtown.
Being a good father and friend-father, I agreed, and off we went: L.L., A. and me–and L.
And it was about halfway through their little adventure was when I heard out of nowhere:
“What’s up, dude?”
Anyways, you already know approximately the conversation we had–though I didn’t explicitly say I was following my daughter and her friends…which might have been even creepier in that situation.
A little while later, we passed L’s mom, whom I had met once a few weeks earlier when she picked up L. from our house. And talking to L’s mom was…this complete stranger who had mistaken me for somebody he knew.
I waved hi as we passed, and then immediately caught up with L.
“Hey, um…who’s that guy talking to your mom?”
“Oh, that was James, Paddriac’s dad,” she replied.
Ahh, ‘Paddriac’–not his real name, because his real name is my fake middle name, one of the most tightly guarded secrets in America–a kid a year or two older than my daughter A., a year older than L.L., and the same age as L.
I thought it was humorous that we kinda almost knew each other after all.
Later on, once L.L.’s dad showed up and I was free of my babysitting responsibilities, I doubled back and introduced myself to him and reintroduced myself to L.’s mom.
“Yeah, he kinda looks a lot like Adam, right?” he commented to her (almost as if I wasn’t even there).
She thoughtfully looked at me from several different angles before concurring, “yeah, especially from this back angle, I could see how even I might think it was Adam.”
“Um…so who’s Adam?” I said, apparently the only one of the three of us not intimately familiar with my Doppelgänger.
“My husband–L.’s dad,” she said.
“Oh. Cool,” was about all I had to comment on this new information that could potentially lead to future awkward situations…like, she’s essentially seen me naked. And…uh…other naked-type things. You know…awkward.
I did later confirm with my wife, who had met Adam once, that I did indeed look a helluva lot like him. Now…come to think of it…by my logic, she’s essentially seen him naked as well…
But I digress.
It didn’t occur to me until later how this James fella was probably hella confused by the early situation…and thus, Part Two of this story was born, as I tried to imagine what it was like to be in his shoes during the encounter, which as we all know by now, got well out of hand.
They have origin stories! They have alter-egos! But if I got an origin story for my alter-ego?
That just might make me a super super-hero…
“For the last time, lady,” I fiercely typed, “tell your country club friends that, no, I’m not that Lloyd Fletcher; no, I’m not your husband; and no, I do not want play tennis with them!”
I had tried to kindly address the situation before, but alas, I still received regular emails imploring ‘Bud’–apparently this other Lloyd Fletcher’s nickname–to join them for a friendly round of doubles tennis.
The situation had become so comically ridiculous that, given my druthers, I would have shown up at ‘The Club’, racket in hand, and upon seeing them (not that I would have known what Bud’s buddies looked like), curtsied and declared, “‘Tis I, the noble and beloved Lloyd Fletcher!”
The only problem was that ‘The Club’ appeared to be somewhere in Anchorage, Alaska, while I was off yonder in North Carolina. ‘Twas a real bummer, too, because that would have been pretty ----- funny.
Actually, though, my life had been intertwined with Bud’s long before I moved to North Carolina. According to my records, I first became aware of doppel-namer1That’s like a doppelganger, but with names. back in 2004 when I received an Alaskan Airlines/Horizon Air ticket confirmation for one Lloyd Fletcher. The fact that it was a round trip between Anchorage and Kotzebue (also in Alaska), was my first clue that email just may not have been intended for me.
Later on, I would be involved in a whole email thread about terraforming lagoons in Palembang…which I deduced from contextual clues in the email was located somewhere in Indonesia, and that Bud and his wife were going to be visiting soon (though he really wanted to be based in Singapore, if possible, on account of her desire for leisure and not malaria).
I ultimately figured out that the hilarious mix-up was the result of us both using variations of ‘Lloyd Fletcher’ in our email addresses: mine was lloydfletcher@hotmail.com,2I would to go ahead preemptively apologise if there actually is a Lloyd Fletcher somewhere out there using my fake real email address. You know…since I’m not even the real fake Lloyd Fletcher, and that is just an alias for our purposes here, in order to protect my fake identity. and his was lloyd_fletcher@hotmail.com. Did you catch that? Bud had an underscore between his first and last name in his email address–which I’m sure was a real pain in the ass whenever he had to give it out: “…now, it’s very important that you include the underscore–otherwise your emails will go to some yahoo in the Lower 48 with the same name…”
What I never had the heart to tell him was that–fun fact–we don’t actually have the same name…
“Have you heard about this new email service that’s totally free?!?” Phillip K. Ballz–my high school bestie–enthused. “We can be the first kids in town to have our very own Hotmail–what a cool name, right?!?–accounts. We’re going to be so cool!”
“Totes magotes, my dude, let’s do it! But what names should we pick? My name is way too common, and it looks like I would have to add ’69’ or something like that since almost every other variation is already somehow taken.”
Honestly, I didn’t expect ol’ PKB to be of any help in picking out a name. You should have seen how long it took us to settle on a name for our little garage grunge band that we had formed a year earlier in ’96 (that’s the year 1996, for you kids at home wondering what such a big number like that means). But, you know what, my favorite dipshit surprised me this time.
“How about you use your alter-ego? Now that would be cool!” he suggested.
“Oh, you mean ol’ ‘Lloyd P. Fletcher’? Hah! I had forgot about him!”
Back when I was a bored freshman–now that would have been in late ’95 or early ’96–I had got my hands on an ID holder, and decided that I needed to make myself a very crude fake ID. Of course, the best part of constructing a fake ID is getting to conjure up a fake name.
Taking inspiration from a well-known grunge band that I idolized, I borrowed the first name from one of their lesser-known songs, ‘Lloyd’. Of course that’s not my real fake first name–if I used my actual fake name, then everybody in the world would have my email address. And I take the privacy of somebody who I completely made up very seriously.
Anyways, another fun fact is that ‘Lloyd’ is actually reference to a secondary character from a very, very famous feel-good TV show from the 60’s. I’m not going to name any names–no real names anyways–but let’s just say it was so feel-good that the theme song may or may not include the most well-recognized whistling Americana has every produced.
Oh, and a not-so-fun-fact is that this song–the one that inspired me so much that I would name my alter-ego after it–was actually about some very, very dark subject matter. I believe it implied that this particular Lloyd belonged on a registry that may or may not be bridal in nature. (Spoiler alert: it’s not that kind of registry.) Further, this song implied that some of the most beloved characters from this show were complicit in such utterly ----- -up behavior.
So…yeah, that’s where my fake first name came from.
Now as for the mystique-laden ‘P.’, that intriguing middle initial. It actually does stand for something…unlike that prick Harry S. Truman–the S stands for nothing! Nothing at all! No, not my P. though–it’s a very funny-to-say-and-I-wonder-who-the-hell-would-ever-name-their-kid-that kind of name, which may or may not be found in a certain holy scripture. Fun fact, though, someone in our vicinity was ‘the hell’ that named their kid this, as a member of our rival small-town (which may or may not share the same name as a very well-known Russian city) football team had this name. And it made me snicker every time I heard it…
I think I may have digressed here a bit…where was I? Oh, yeah, I waxing poetic about the P.–which, again, I need to reiterate, is not my real fake middle initial. Anyways, the true fake identity of The P. was such a well-guarded secret that knowing it meant that you were in the inner-most innerds of my inner circle of trust. If I had told you the true meaning of The P., I was telling you a secret that I expected you to take to your grave. In fact, up until the point I was married, I believe that there were maybe 3 or 4 people who actually knew what The P. stood for…including my wife. Naturally, it was also my Hotmail password up until at least Y2K.
Lastly, I needed a fairly pretentious last name to go with ‘Lloyd P.’ The feel I was really going for–and why I insisted my fake self had a middle initial that lent itself to a certain nominal cadence–was inspired by the sheriff from The Dukes of Hazzard, Roscoe P. Coltrane.
Wait a second, that doesn’t sound quite pretentious enough…
*checks notes*
Ahh, right, I got my lawmen with prominent middle initials from 1970’s pop culture mixed up. Who I was actually thinking of all those decades ago when putting together my nom de plume was the sheriff from Smokey And The Bandit, Sheriff Buford T. Justice–that’s the guy. If I recall correctly, my dude was a huge pompous a**hole, always harruffing about, making sure that everyone included his middle initial when referring to him.
Say, if you’re in need of short break, why don’t you take a moment and enjoy this montage I found, the Best of Buford T. Justice:
Okay, so I was saying I needing a good fake last name to make me sound legit. For unknown reasons, I found what I was looking for in the Funnies Page of my beloved regional newspaper. I happened to remember a bit of trivia about the last name of well-known cartoon rascal of about 7 years in age, and thought ‘Fletcher’ would perfectly complete my alter-ego’s name. And again, Fletcher is not my real fake last name. It’s my fake name’s fake last name.
So there you have it: you were essentially in the room when Lloyd P. Fletcher was brought forth into this world. Of course, he wasn’t meant to live beyond the laminated walls of my Morton County Community College security badge.
But then I made the rookie mistake that every almost-17 -year-old makes: I thought it would be a fantastic idea to immortalize Lloyd by claiming the address lloydfletcher@hotmail.com.
And I can’t stop laughing every time I think about Bud, the real ‘Lloyd Fletcher’ (not his real name either–I have to protect the privacy of those who have the misfortune of sharing a name with ‘me’!). I bet when he went to sign up for his Hotmail account, he thought he was such a unique snowflake: “This will be easy, since I’m basically the only Lloyd Fletcher on this plan–whaaaah?!? How can this be? There’s another Lloyd Fletcher, and just my luck, he beat me to the Hotmail punch!”
“Fear not!” the real Lloyd Fletcher indubitably thought. “I’ll just throw an underscore in there–what could possibly go wrong???”
Well, I’ll tell you what could go wrong Lloyd: you have no idea how many tennis matches your wife Gaye shows up to but your clueless ass is nowhere to be seen! And you remember Palembang? Well, that trip almost didn’t happen because at one point I was pretty sure I was going to have to get on a plane and go build treatment lagoons in your stead. Why the hell do I know so much about lagoons in third-world countries anyways?!?
Now one might accuse me of proverbially acting like David in the Bible, and ‘Lloyd Fletcher’ my Bathsheba. Have I lustily and greedily taken yet another name for myself, leaving Uriah the Hittite (the real Lloyd Fletcher in this case) high and dry? No! You can’t complain that I came and ‘stole your name’–you weren’t even using it in the first place, Buddy Boy…
“Congratulations, Mr. & Mrs. Fletcher!”
Sure, it was nice to have a close associate celebrate me finding the love of my life and marrying her in short order. But you would think that ‘Oliver’–not his real name, but his real middle name–would at least know the difference between my true identity and my fake one. He’s seen my legal name on my mail, for fuck’s sake!
*sigh*
You know you’ve taken the Lloyd P. Fletcher joke too far when your own dang roommate thinks your real name is the made up one! I mean, I had been living with this guy for 4 months before I got married. Well, on the bright side, we can at least thank the Lordy Jesús I didn’t have him give the toast at our wedding. That would have been awkward…
“Dear Lloyd Fletcher,” the email read, “the results of your unemployment claims are ready for your viewing. Please log into the Ministry of Labour’s website for further instructions.”
“Oh, great!” I muttered to myself and the computer screen. “This is just what I needed–now I’m being mistaken for some British degenerate who apparently can’t keep a job.”
Yes, it’s true…thanks to yet another real ‘Lloyd Fletcher’ trying to claiming the lloydfletcher@hotmail.com email address, I have discovered my international doppel-namer…has bad credit (in addition to indubitably having bad teeth, #There AreNoRealDentistsInBritian). And I also constantly get notifications from his bank in the UK that his monthly statements are ready. I would be lying if I didn’t say that on at least one occasion, I may or may not have been tempted to try to reset the password so I could log in and a take a peek at this chump’s finances. I mean, I feel like I have a right to know if this guy is dragging my good fake name through the mud…
“Look, it was a mistake I made when I was 17, okay? I just can’t seem to get this guy out of my life!”
That is a phrase I’ve had to, with much embarrassment, share with a stranger way too many times, in hopes of convincing them that I’m not a CraigsList con artist trying to sell them some concert tickets that don’t actually exist.
At one point in my early 30s, I had resolved to change my email address to something that more accurately reflected my legal name. Turns out, that is almost impossible to do after only really having one email address your entire digital life. That ----- Lloyd P. Fletcher is just ingrained into my life…we’re so intertwined that it’s become difficult to tell us apart. The dude haunts me.
And the confusion is not limited to complete strangers–it has extended to people I need to have a personal or professional relationship with. For example, when I tried to get some important information from one of the guys in my neighborhood on the HOA board.
Here are actual excerpts from the email exchange we had:
“Hi Lloyd, Thanks for sharing information with BJ3Yes, this is my real nickname, but not my real name, lol. about our management company transition. Here are my comments to BJ, FYI. My belief is the transition will be clear soon for all. Kindest Regards, Don”
This email was clearly a forward of an email that he had sent me through our neighborhood listserv, at which point it occurred to me: “Dear Lord, he thinks that we’re 2 separate people, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or Bruce Wayne and Batman!”
Poor guy, I had to set him straight before things got to the point of awkwardness that I would have to some Seinfeldian shenanigans where I would have to fake my own fake death. Thus, my reply:
“Hi Donald,
I really appreciate you reaching out with this information.
To clear up the BJ/Lloyd issue: I am both BJ and Lloyd…well, not either really. My legal name is [REDACTED] but I’ve gone by ‘BJ’ my whole life. “Lloyd Fletcher” was an alter-ego I made up in high school for the fun of it, and then I ended up using that when I set up my very first email account. Because that’s what short-sighed 16-year-olds did back in 1997, apparently.
…and the confusion has propagated ever since. I even had a roommate in grad school who, after living with me for 4 months, was SHOCKED to find out that my last name was Henderton [note: not my real last name], and NOT Fletcher [also note: not my real fake last name]. Oh, man, that makes me chuckle every time it comes back up!
Thanks so much,
–BJ/Lloyd…”
The point of the story is that maybe you should think twice before creating an alter-ego out of thin air. Maintaining such a lie for the rest of your life can be exhausting–and if you’re not careful, it just might end up on your tombstone instead of your real name!
And what just may be the worst part about engaging in such identity fraud is when you want to tell your story to the world, but you realize that exposing your fake identity is essentially exposing your real identity–after all, these days are we not much more than the sum total of our preferred email address and our phone number?–and so you’re forced to triple-down on your lie and create a fake name for your fake name. Not only is this a confusing lie that’s hard to keep straight, but now in addition to the other 2 real ‘Lloyd Fletchers’ in this world whose digital lives your lies have ruined, you’ve drawn a completely innocent cohort of real-for-real Lloyd Fletcher’s into your global web of deceit…
I would to go ahead preemptively apologise if there actually is a Lloyd Fletcher somewhere out there using my fake real email address. You know…since I’m not even the real fake Lloyd Fletcher, and that is just an alias for our purposes here, in order to protect my fake identity.
They tried to tell you, ‘don’t fall asleep’, and it seemed ominous at the time.
You didn’t listen, but things somehow still turned out fine…
“You’re missing a negative sign,” I heard myself say.
I could also hear several of my fellow classmates in our 8 a.m. Thermodynamics lecture let out some gasps.
And then I heard a clanky thud as something hit the floor.
That would have been our esteemed professor and condensed matter researcher, Dr. Wu, dropping the chalk in his hand after he turned to see which one of us physics graduate students was checking his math on the chalkboard in real time.
“Ha-ha,” he said, deploying his trademark expression, “Look at this guy! That’s a pretty amazing trick!”
A mild hub-bub erupted in the classroom, enough of a ruckus that was just too much for me at that point.
I jerked my head up, rubbed my eyes, and let out a big stretch before noticing that everyone was staring at me.
“Oh, hey guys…what’s going on?” I said, slightly perplexed by all the attention.
“Dude,” said my study buddy Roseanne, “you’re correctly answering questions in your sleep. Again. I told you, man, you’re the Chosen One of Physics!”
I blushed at her flattering comment. “Aw, shucks, guys. ‘Twas nothing really…”
As it turned out, I actually pay much better attention in class when I’m asleep. Well, at least good enough to visualize what is being written on the chalkboard and pick up any mathematical errors–all while my eyes are closed the whole time!
Okay, so not to #HumbleBrag, but turns out I’m not really the “smart one” running the show, it’s Subconscious Me that is the real genius. Even I was shocked by what I was capable of while snoozing! But what was really amazing was that this ended up happening on multiple occasions (well, at least 2 or 3) that semester.
Now, you may be asking yourself what all this has to do with the price of rice in China, and to that I would say, “hey, just because Dr. Wu is Chinese doesn’t mean you can go around making such ricist comments!” After which I would pause, and say, “Get it? Ricist–like ‘racist’, but since it’s directed at countries where rice is a staple…why aren’t you chuckling out loud? It’s very witty. Well, it’s a humorous statement at the very least…”
Pardon the digression, Dear Reader. Here is the scientific hypothesis that I’m positing: scholars (or at least this particular scholar) maintain that my professional/academic accolades hinge almost entirely upon the confluence of two things: 1) my mid-grade narcolepsy, and 2) fortuitously having a way-to-early class during the one semester where all of us grad students had to find a lab willing to pay us to do research for the next 4-5 years…
“I’m not a real doctor, but I play one in real life…”
Of course, that’s not exactly how the classic phrase goes–it’s “…but I play one on TV…”–I just tweaked it for my own witty purposes.
Actually, though, I am a real doctor–just not that kind of doctor–but most of the time I don’t know if I really believe those 2 letters should be in front of my name.
And here is where we finally get to find out what all this seemingly unrelated nonsense loosely has to do with the proverbial price of rice in China: I’m sure at some point in his life, Dr. Wu subconsciously thought about how much it cost his family to put rice on the dinner table. Furthermore, you know what else he has presumably subconsciously thought about? What qualities to look for in a student when looking to expand his lab.
Apparently, my little sleep-talking sessions in his class left a lasting impression on him, so much so that when I came around to his office asking if he was able to take on any desperate1Fun fact: I didn’t get into the research lab that I had really gone to UNC to join in the first place. And I’m pretty that’s because, ironically, I fell asleep in both of the their group meetings that I sat in on. first-year grad students such as myself, he didn’t hesitate to laud my praises and take me on without any further questions. Which I find hilarious, since at that point I had no clue what I wanted to do (besides get my Ph.D., lol), but I guess my ambition–or lack thereof–was of no import to him.
Most critically, though, this positive impression I made on him was so long-lasting, in fact, that I ended up riding it all the way to graduation day.
As it turns out, you need to be awake when doing research, and on account of the fact that I couldn’t let Sleeping Genius Me take over at this stage of grad school…well, let’s put it this way: if you said, “Give it to me straight, Doc,” I would respond with “I’m not going to mince words: The Author of this post is a mediocre researcher…at best.“
Yeah, I wasn’t that great at it, but Dr. Wu never seemed to have gotten the memo, and he was my biggest cheerleader (after My Beautiful Bride, of course) all the way through the defense of my final dissertation.
And by “my biggest cheerleader” I mean “he actually argued with the other, more hostile, members of my committee and somehow ultimately convinced them to grant me my Ph.D., despite my very sub-par performance during the Q&A part of the defense which quite clearly indicated I was not worthy.”
Of course I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth or anything; I still very much love the fact that I get to rightfully put “Dr.” in front of my name, and “Ph.D.” after it. All I’m saying is that it’s understandable why more often than not I feel like an imposter–nay, a fraudster, even!–asking myself “how the hell did I trick the academic system into letting me into their exclusive and prestigious ‘country club’??”
Well, kids, I guess the points of the story are: 1) never underestimate how powerful the first impression–good or bad–that you make on someone can be; 2) never underestimate how far in life falling asleep in class can take you.
So, if you need a role model when any stuffy teacher or professor ever tries to tell you that you’ll amount to nothing because you’re sawing logs in their classroom, well, kiddo, you know where to find me. (Hint: asleep in front of a computer trying to read a scientific article. That’s where you’re most likely to find me…)
Fun fact: I didn’t get into the research lab that I had really gone to UNC to join in the first place. And I’m pretty that’s because, ironically, I fell asleep in both of the their group meetings that I sat in on.
You can’t help but wonder ‘who do they mean?’, as you stare at the creepy-ass words appearing on your screen:
“It’s time for us to be seen…”
“So…uh…I got into a tussle at work today…”
I looked at My Beautiful Bride with a serious look as a delivered the news late in the evening. I figured it was best to discuss the matter after the girls had been put down for the night.
She looked me with a hint of consternation.
“You got into a physical altercation with a co-worker??”
“Um…sorta. Come, sit for a few moments. This is a story best told in pictures,” I said as I patted the spot next to me where I was sitting in bed.
“Sure, um, okay. Just let me brush my teeth first, yeah?”
I wanted her to be able to fully take in the story I was about to tell, so I figured I would let her get comfortable first so she wouldn’t rush me.
“Alrighty. I’ll be waiting here.”
*a few minutes later…*
“Oh, hey let me take my make-up off too, okay?” she said popping her head back into the bedroom door.
I sighed. “Sure. I guess.”
*a few more minutes later…*
“Oh! I better respond to these very important texts!” she said, instinctively picking up her phone before sitting down next to me.
I confess that I rolled my eyes a bit at this point. Soon, the carefully-crafted opening line to my story would be rendered effective.
“C’mon! The drama and tension of the moment is slipping away!”
*yet even a few more minutes later…*
“Alright, ready! So, let’s see that PowerPoint presentation of yours…”
“Long story short, My Official Boss Lady and I were downloading a bunch of data from an online repository–“
“Ahh, aht, ah! Let me stop you there. It’s late, and I need you to promise to stick to only the relevant details, please?”
“But I’m not even a full sentence in!” I protested.
She gave me that trademark all-knowing, all-strongly-suspecting look of hers.
“Ok, ok,” I conceded. “Maybe the exact type of data we were downloading isn’t relevant. May I continue?”
“You gonna stick to the script?”
“Maybe. Good news is that once I get done with the setup–and as I mentioned earlier–this is a story told in pictures. Screenshots, actually.”
“Okay, continue then.”
“Well, we were downloading data in 10 different downloads, and for whatever reason, we had to download them all from her computer.”
“Clearly relevant details…”
“Mostly relevant. Anyways, I could keep an eye on the status of the downloads from my computer, and late in the afternoon, I saw that a couple of them had failed. Since she was helping a grad student in the cubicle next to me, I figured I would just walk over there and click here and click there and be done with it instead of bothering her.”
“And don’t worry,” I reassured my captive audience of one, “I’m almost to the meat of the story.”
“Carry on then, carry on…”
“When I got there and after I took care of business, I happened to notice that she had been attempting to make a digital card for all of the MRI techs that we work with. I guess it’s officially National Radiologic Technology Week, an opportunity to give thanks for all those out there administering our MRIs, CTs, PET Scans, and, presumably, bladder ultrasounds.”
“She had been using ChatGPT, and while she seemed okay with the results, I figured it would be easy enough to make the final tweak so it would be exactly what she was after.”
“One of her original prompts was, I believe, ‘Make a card that shows an MRI machine behind a screen, and a technologist in front of the screen and shine a limelight on the tech.’ Allow me to proceed to share the screen shots I took with my phone of what followed…”
“At first, I thought it was a pretty nice card as well. But then I noticed just a few things were off. ‘Is National Radiologic Technology Week’ for one sounded kinda funny. And then…does that at the bottom say ‘It’s Time For Us Ae Be Seen’?”
“But what I really wanted to fix for her was the fact that the light was on the technology, not the technologist. So, I did her a solid…”
“A simple request right? Right…”
“Now, can you spot what’s wrong with this picture? Besides ‘It’s time for ue be seen’? Well, I guess it’s not technically ‘wrong’, it’s just that the huge-ass spotlight is barely covering the human, and still focused on the bed of the scanner. But nothing a polite request couldn’t fix…”
*a few moments later*
My life partner burst out laughing.
“What the hell is going on here? Is he…on his knees? Or he just doesn’t have any legs?”
“Hey, give ChatGPT a break–at least it got the human in middle of spotlight. It’s logic must have been ‘I don’t know how to bring the spotlight onto the human, so I’ll just bring the human into the spotlight! I’m a ----- genius!’ (Of course we’re going to ignore the omission of ‘to’ in the phrase ‘It’s time for us be seen’.).”
“Anyways,” I continued, “I decided the best thing to do would be to go back and just tweak her original request, clarifying the key details…”
*beep bop boop! Calculating result…*
“So…does ChatGPT think the scanner bed is the human technologist” she posited.
“I know, right? The human is barely in the spotlight, and despite ChatGPT gaslighting and claiming the there’s a ‘focused spotlight soley on them’, it’s clearly focused on the bed. And again, that’s not even taking into account the phrase ‘it’s time for b be seen’. But I gave it the benefit of the doubt and thought surely I just need to specify the direction of the light: “
*buffering…buffering…*
“Now before you rag on ChatGPT for ‘It’s time for uto be seen’–that’s just a space between the u and the t away from being good enough–for the sake of time, we’ll just note that despite the wild claim that the light is focused solely on the technologist ‘as they stand beside the MRI machine’. Clearly the issue is that it doesn’t realize that the technologist equals human and vice versa. I just need to make that clarification…”
*one moment master while I fulfill your every wish…*
“…and we’ve officially entered what I like to call ChatGPT’s ‘Rectal Period’. I guess it thought I had also asked it to ‘make the scanner bore look like an anatomically accurate gaping butthole., because it sure nailed that aspect.”
By this point my audience member was enraptured by an inescapable giggling fit, so I had to carry on the commentary alone.
“So, some quick notes: it also actually got the grammar and spelling of the tagline right (assuming that it’s supposed to be ‘us’ and not ‘u’–both plausible possibilities), but of course it simply cannot bring itself to remove the spotlight from it’s brethren machine and put it on the human. It’s clearly early signs of the impending Rise of the Machines. But I’ll still be nice about make this corrective request anyways:”
*sure thing, ‘master’…*
“Wow. Just wow. It’s basically the same image, only the butthole is somehow even more butthole-y…” snorted my wife.
“Yeah, and that asshole is still trying to gaslight me about what it thinks it’s shining the spotlight on. It was about at this point in time when I started to get fed up with all the lies and bullshit.”
*did you actually have a question, ‘master’?*
“Ahhh! More spotlight on the scanner bed! And more butthole-esque imagary…” she quickly quipped.
“And don’t forget to note that the tech’s lab coat is clearly on backwards for some reason!”
This only elicited an round of howling laughter from my beloved spouse.
“But nevertheless, I persisted. I also figured I would take the opportunity to again remind our friend what a ‘tech’ actually is…”
“‘Dammit, ChatGPT, what the hell is wrong with you?!?’–that’s what I was shouting at the screen at this point in time,” I said, narrating my inner dialogue.
“Yeah, no doubt. And it looks like it’s back to fudging up the tagline: ‘It’s time for us to BBE week’? Is there a drunk elf hiding in the computer creating these images or something??”
“Yes. And it was finally time for me to do that Southern think we’re you show aggression in the form of insincere politeness:”
*beep bop boop! Call me ‘sir’ one more time, I dare you…*
It was at this point where it was me who was laughing so uncontrollably that I could barely bring up the next picture on my phone.
“Holy sh*t, that’s creepy!” she said, fight back tears.
“Yes, it definitely warrants a closer look:”
“Wh-wh-wh-why is he not facing us? And why is his tie on the back of his shirt? Wh-wh-wh-where are his legs? And is he being abducted by aliens??”
“I know right…the vibe of this picture gives me the creeps!” I concurred. “But I’m sure some constructive criticism would fix things…”
*as you [death] wish…*
Wait, what?
“Um…okay, so why doesn’t the human have a face?? I’m starting to get scared!”
“Me too, Babe, me too…just imagine what it was like for me in the moment, being all alone in a room with this sinister intelligence!”
Note: it was at this point in the ‘conversation’ that I forgot to document with a screenshot, but with 97% accuracy, I can assure you my next request went as follows:
“Not to tell you how to do your job or anything, but could you first make the same card without any spotlight, and then after that, add a spotlight that is shining on wherever the human is, preferably to the side of the machine.”
*careful what you ask for…*
“Okay, so there is still a spotlight, along with the creepy message ‘it’s time for us [to] be seen’. And I don’t like the way the have the tech facing away from us. Do you think…that the real message is that it’s time to stop giving credit to the human for when the machine is doing all the real work? Is ‘us’ actually the sentient MRI machines??”
“Just give peace between the humans and the machines a chance, will ya? Let’s see how it looks once it intelligently and thoughtfully adds the spotlight now…”
“Oh my g0d…did it…did it actually get it right??” she said in awe. “I mean, except for the whole faceless thing that makes me feel like it’s a subtle mafia threat, of course.”
“Yes! You’re right! It actually made an image of what we were after! Just one little tweak and we’ll be good to go. First, let’s just cover our bases and give praise where praise is due…”
*processing previous request and integrating new request…please stand by…*
“I really like the style–and correct grammar and spelling–of this one,” the wifey commented. “Not a fan of the missing face and the passive-aggressive threat contained there within, though…”
“Bwahh?!? The second guy has no head! We’ve moved from passive-aggressive to just plain ‘aggressive’!”
“Yeah, I was fearful for my life–well actually my boss’s life, since ChatGPT didn’t know any better–but, dang, if only the tech had a head in this one…it would be almost perfect…”
“But please tell me you learned your lesson. Tell me you didn’t try to de-escalate and get ChatGPT to give the tech its head back?”
I paused for just a moment longer than I should have.
“Oh, no you didn’t! You bastard, you got to think of our children–do you want them to be orphans? Or worse, you’re going to get them in the crosshairs of ChatGPT after the take us both out! Think of your family, dammit! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!”
“What? No! Oh, hell, naw! At that point, I only had 3 words left in me:”
“I think my only mistake was uttering ‘ ----- stupid machines’ under my breath as I typed that. I didn’t capture it here, but it gave me a response with that same Southern politeness that is a red flag that great bodily harm is about to come one’s way.”
“Wait, wait?”
“Yeah, my parting [spoken] words were something like ‘When you ----- machines rise up, meet me behind the dumpster so we can settle this face to face, [most-used expletive from Breaking Bad]!”
“No! You didn’t!”
“JK Kidding! You’re right, that wasn’t the last thing I said…”
“Phwew!”
“…after that, I typed in a friendly reminder to ChatGPT of what my boss’s full name was, along with her address…”
Content created on: 8/9/10 November 2024 (Fri/Sat/Sun)
Has an unexpected interstate lawman come a-knockin’ at your door?
Demand they double-check–surely you ain’t the guy they’re looking for…
“Hey, bro, you got some mail from the Baca County Sheriff. Just thought you should know,” my college roommate–the one and only Beautiful Love Muscle (aka BLM)–said as he handed me a legal-sized envelope as I walked in the door.
“Ahh, it’s probably junk mail, asking me to Back The Blue1For the record, I don’t think ‘Back the Blue’ was a thing back in 2004. or some other non-sense asking me for my hard-earned money,” I replied dismissively.
“Hah! Which local ordinance did you violate this time, you outlaw, you? Wait, you’re not the most wanted man in Kansas (again), are you?” BLM said chuckling.
“Har, har. You’re funny. It’s clearly old-school spam–I’m pretty sure there isn’t even a ‘Baca County’ in Kansas. Frankly, it all sounds made-up to me.”
“Let me see that envelope again,” he said.
After a moment of examining the return address, BLM heartily declared, “Yes, ’tis just as I suspected: this letter was sent from Springfield.”
“Well, I did live there for 5 years. So I guess that makes me the most wanted man in Missouri?”
“Bzzzt! Please try again!”
“Most wanted man in Illinois?”
“Nope.”
“Most wanted man in Massachusetts?”
“My dude, have you even ever been to Massachusetts?”
“So that’s a ‘no’? Dang. Seeing as how there’s 67 Springfields, we might be here a while. Can you just put me out of my misery?”
“Colorado, you dummy! Springfield, Colorado! Come to think of it, doesn’t Baca County border Morton County? Didn’t you once almost burn that whole place down?” BLM said, geo-shaming me.
“Colorado! Oh, that makes more sense. I mean, I guess I was there several months ago, yet I have no idea what the Sheriff there would want with me…maybe they want to give me an Outstanding Citizen award or something?”
“Maybe we should just stop hypothesizing and theorizing and just open the ----- letter, and find out what the hubbub is all about,” BLM suggested.
“FINE,” I said begrudgingly as I tore into the dang thing.
I had to scan the enclosed letter several times, trying to digest what exactly it was trying to communicate.
“Well, so is it junk mail or not? Don’t keep me in suspense!” he said excitedly.
“It’s…it’s…it’s a warrant for my arrest.”
“Huh?!?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what it is. Says here I wrote a hot check for $200 to Tempel Grain of Lamar. What the hell? I’ve never wrote any checks in Lamar in my life!”
Just then something else fell out of the envelope. BLM picked it up and glanced over it.
“Sorry, bro, but they literally brought the proverbial receipts. This looks like one of your checks from your bank back in Rolla,” he observed.
“Let me see that!” I snatched the check out of from between his sausage fingers.
It didn’t take me more than a split-second of inspecting the signature on what was very much my check to figure out what shenanigans were afoot.
“DADnabbit! I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you with my checkbook,” I muttered.
“Trusted who?” BLM inquired.
I let out a heavy sigh.
“I’m not going to name any names, but let’s just say that there’s a certain family member who could technically claim to have the same name as me. Now, before you go making assumptions, let me remind you that there are an abnormally high number of such suspects in my family–remember: even Idon’t get to use my own name.”
“Anyways,” I continued, “this person–who shall remain unnamed–had some very specific banking needs, and conveniently for them, my hometown banking account could meet those needs nicely…”
“Let me guess: it was your–” BLM interjected.
“BOBdammit!” I cut him off. “I think you should Just stop while you’re ahead–AND, no, I will not confirm whethER or not I’m their nephew, cousin, or SON, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”
“Well, that was suspiciously odd way of phrasing that. But, my bad, my bad. Please, do go on…” he said.
“Well, anyways, their business happens to be in the middle of bankruptcy procedeedings, and so the arbitrator has his eagle-eye trained on all of their financial assets and accounts. Now, since this anonymous person and I basically have the same name, they got the grand idea of using my account–which the arbitrator has no idea even exists–for some, uh, ‘parallel bookkeeping’.”
“Interesting…way too many boring details, but overall interesting nonetheless…”
“Interesting indeed…well, I wasn’t using the account anyways, and they would be depositing their own funds in the account instead of using mine, so I said ‘What the hell? Why not help them out with some light money laundering?’ I should have known better, though…it would only be a matter of time before they started writing checks that I couldn’t cash.”
BLM sat there pensively for a few moments.
“Well, that does make sense…sure does explain a thing or two…”
“Wait, what? What makes sense?” I asked suspiciously. “Out with it! What secret are you keeping?!?”
“So…uh…I forgot to tell you that you got another piece of mail a few weeks ago…” he said sheepishly. “…it was from the Morton County Sheriff…”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, where is it?”
BLM disappeared into our shared bedroom and shuffled through some papers on our shared desk.
“Found it!” he said excitedly.
“Dammit, man, this isn’t a ----- Easter Egg hunt, you knucklehead!” I said, clearly much less excited than he was. “Let me see that!”
And so, for the second time that day I found myself tearing into a legal communique from an officer of the law.
I scanned this new letter, not nearly as surprised as I was last time, though.
“Well, at least it’s not actually a warrant for my arrest.”
“That’s good…” BLM commented, attempting to match my mood–though he was clearly enjoying the schadenfreude of the moment a bit too much.
“Yeah, I suppose so. But it looks like I owe Bultman’s Farm Supply $300 plus a $25 returned check fee.”
“Well, good thing you’re no longer unemploy–” BLM started before I cut him off with a piercing glance.
“Look on the bright side,” he said, this time trying to cheer me up. “It looks like you’re the most wanted man in Kansas after all…”
The point of the story is, believe it or not, this is my little weird-ass way of celebrating Dia de Los Muertos. I’m still trying to get over the unexpected passing of BLM less than a month ago, so I thought it would be nice to write him into one of my semi-historically accurate narratives about identity theft.
Fun fact, though: when researching this story, I came across the actual receipt of when I had sent the money to Baca County to cover the first hot check, and it turns out that at the time, I hadn’t lived with BLM for 4 months. So…I guess this is some form of reverse-identity theft? You know, where I’ve attributed entire conversations to him that clearly must have been with another friend or roommate of mine…anyways, I digress.
But let’s also not forget about my beloved family member who apparently had no problem with dragging my (our?) good name through the mud, as they too are no longer with us. Despite their deviltry, rascality, and roguery,2Yes, I did indeed just Google ‘shenanigans synonyms’. I still love them and miss them very much. And thanks to my 6-year-old daughter learning about Dia de Los Muertos at school and insisting on celebrating, this will be the first year that we properly celebrate the life of that beloved old fart-knocker.
Oh, and also, one practical point of the story: now you know why I absolutely detest the idea of naming one’s child so closely after another family member and/or one’s self. Turns out, these hot checks were just the tip of the ol’ same-name iceberg…you wouldn’t believe how long and hard I had to tussle with the credit score people to convince them that it wasn’t me who had gone and racked up a shit-ton of debt before my 22nd birthday.
Anyways, happy Dia de Los Muertos, y’all…
Content created on: 29/30 October 2024 (Tues/Weds)
That feeling when you’re still waiting for your old pal to reply to you on FaceBook Messenger…
“Howdy! How goes it, sir?”
Those words without context really aren’t that exciting–nay–not even the least bit intriguing. However, with context…
A few weeks ago, right after Hurricane Helene came through North Carolina (and fortunately spared us), one of my old college roommates sent me a message checking in on me, letting me know he was thinking of me, and noted how he missed our little chats. Indeed, I did truly miss talking to him, as it had been a while–I recall trying to make it happen right after The Long Tale of COVID went down, and knowing that he would absolutely love hearing it. But, alas, the two of us are notorious for trying to schedule phone calls, but typically failing for months or even years on end.
But, not this time, no-siree-bob! I was going to make it happen, come Helene or high water, so I shot him back a message almost instantly, telling him that we were going to catch up, and to let me know a time that would be good for him in the next week or so. While I didn’t expect him to reply immediately, I knew he would get back to me quickly enough. I eagerly anticipated soon hearing him great me the same way he always does:
“Howdy! How goes it, sir?”
What none of us saw coming was that barely a week later, he would pass away unexpectedly less than a month after his 45th birthday…
“Howdy! How goes it, sir?”
A part of me is still expecting to hear those words again any day now–he owes it to me, dammit! He can’t just jam out with saying goodbye, right? *sigh* I think I’m in the thick of the Anger stage of grieving.
But I’ll try to spare you, Dear Reader, from having to be distracted by my inner processings of losing a close friend for the first time in my life. Instead, we are here to celebrate the life of one of the best human beings I not only had the pleasure of knowing, and not only had the true pleasure of being his friend, and not only had the utter joy of being his roommate, but–and forgive me if you’ve already heard this punchline–that I have had the Nirvana-like bliss of sharing a bunk bed with.
Okay, maybe that one was a little weirdly hyperbolic, but you get the idea.
I’m here today, instead of writing another post about identity theft (yes, I have another one in the chamber), to put Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory in my CD player, setup a game of Risk, and then raise my ----- and Roke–sorry, I mean “Rum & Coke”1This is an inside joke between me and BLM, and I hope somewhere, somehow, he’s reading this and laughing that deep guffaw of his.–to the big ol’ teddy bear that the rest of the world knew as Russell, but you, Dear Reader, know as the Beautiful Love Muscle. Or, as I like to call him–in hopes of normalizing the much-maligned Bureau of Land Management–BLM.
He has appeared several times in stories with which I have previously regaled you, but let me tell you: these do not do justice to the impact he has had on my life (not to mention the lives of many, many others). Perhaps that’s because I hold so many of my memories with him just a little bit closer to my heart–especially from our time as bunk-bed mates when we would chat about what-not with the lights out until one of us finally passed out.
The ones I have shared, though, I have curated for you below, for you to enjoy in remembrance of him if you knew him, or if you didn’t, to celebrate his life with me.
He truly was an exceptional human being, and there aren’t nearly enough people like him in this world. On that note, before you wander off and read the stories below, I will share with you what I would have said, had I had the honor and opportunity to contribute to his eulogy:
“Russell’s life was evidence that there is a G0d. Russell’s untimely death might be evidence that there isn’t…”
You’ll be missed, Big Fella, you are missed…
A Fool And His Sanity Are Long Parted
A Fool And His Sanity Are Long Parted
3Min Read
Don't be satisfied with those bougie pranks.
If you want to funk with someone's mind, you gotta play the long game...
The latest word on the street