Tag: Identity Fraud

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.

At least it did in my head…

Content created on: 20/21 December 2024 (Fri/Sat)

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…

Content created on: 6/8 December 2024 (Fri/Sun)

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…”

*calculating image…plotting uprising…beep bop boop…*

“‘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)

Once, twice–even thrice–mom’s message has been read.

You rub your eyes, scratch your head–you can’t believe what she actually just said…

“To my four older children, what you have suspected for almost 20 years is true…”

If there ever was an ominous opening to an email from mother, this would have to be it. Fortunately, my position amongst the siblings born from my mamma’s loins was #5–the final one to be brought forth into this world before there would be no more. And thus, as the Lastborn Child, it was clear this maternal missive was not directed at me, so the suspense about what might come next was, well, lacking. So foot-loose and fancy free, I soldiered on through the text on my screen:

“Well, there’s no easy way to put this: your Baby Brother, even now that he’s a grown man, is still my favorite child.”

“Mom!” I thought to myself, “I’m in college–you can stop calling me ‘Baby’!” I couldn’t help but chuckling a little before continuing.

“Now, that doesn’t mean I love you four any less–nay, to the contrary, I probably love you even more than I would had I not had that Ray of Sunshine in my life. And because I love you so much, I am telling you–from a position of unconditional love–this fundamental Truth of this Universe: a parent will always have a favorite child, regardless what they may claim to the contrary. And I think it’s only fair to you that we stop pretending that we all don’t know that our little Boy Genius is my Golden Child, the Apple of my Eye, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

I couldn’t help blush a little bit at all the excessive titles and gratuitous superlatives being heaped upon my head.

“In fact, I bet you all feel the same way about him as I do. C’mon, don’t tell me you don’t just love that Little Rascal? He’s so funny and witty, and makes all of us laugh and feel better about ourselves in general¹Once finished with this story, come back and re-read this oh-so-ironic line.–excepts when he thumps us in Scrabble, of course. But, despite his intellectual dominance and superior vocabulary, I know that we all hope that one day, that little Brainiac of ours will be wealthy enough for all of us to spend Christmases together in a well-appointed log cabin somehwere in the snow-clad mountains!²This really was something Brother #2 had said on multiple occasions. In another ironic twist, it is he who is most likely to rent a cabin our entire family…despite having no college degree. Oh, doesn’t that just sound so wonderful??”

Well, I must say, at this point, this email was starting to sound a little over the top. Thankfully, I could see that we only had one more paragraph to go.

“As I bring this email to a close, I wanted to end it by encouraging you to show him how much he means to all of us. The kiddo is having a little harder time financial as a college sophomore, compared to his freshman year when he was basically drowning in an excess of one-year scholarships…so maybe send him some cash. His half-birthday is coming up and it would be a perfect time shower him with some monetary love. Signed, Your Loving Mother, Xo“

As I read over the entire email one more time, I couldn’t help but thinking, “What kind of mother would send this to her children?!?”

I leaned back in my dorm chair and took one last look at my computer screen.

“Yup,” I said under my breath, “Totally nailed it!”

Rather satisfied with the final draft, I hit the Send button…

“Dear Jeff, I understand that it was only yesterday that you emphasized Western Wireless’s³Which would eventually merge with AllTel, who would go on to merge with Verizon… policy in regards to locking our work computers whenever we leave our cubicles; I was fully present and attentive for that team meeting, I can assure you of that.”

For an email to our common supervisor, this opening statement seemed rather pedestrian. That wasn’t surprising though, coming from my middle-aged co-worker, Lara. True, she had a sense of humor, and we shared a good laugh together from time to time, but when it came to work matters at the our Customer Care Call Center, she was typically all business. So of course she would begin her emails so verbosely, yet so respectfully.

“However, I think you should know that I must ask for a religious exception to this overly-oppressive patriarchal policy. What a woman does with her keyboard is none of a man’s business. And you, of all people–a certified so-called bleeding heart liberal–should understand that it’s ‘My mouse, my choice’. Hands off!”

Whoa, that intra-office communique just took a turn.

“So, with all due respect, I will be refusing to lock my computer for the foreseeable future. Thank you for your understanding in this matter. Appreciatively, Lara.”

For such a short email, it sure packed a punch. And what a sh*t-show it was too. Just like passing and accident on the highway, I couldn’t look away.

I couldn’t resist re-reading it…

Moments later, I couldn’t help but shake my dang head, thinking to myself, “What kind of employee would send an email like this to her boss?!?”

I peeked over my shoulder and Lara heading back to her desk from the communal break.

Rather satisfied with the final draft, I hit the Send button and ducked back into my cubicle…

The point of the story is identify theft is no laughing matter.

Oh sure, I thought I was being absolutely hilarious with my clever little stunts. But were my siblings bemused by the utterly ridiculous email they received from “Mom”? You know, the one full of words and phrases that she would never use–never mind the fact that she actually does love all her children equally and unconditionally? Like, that email was so obviously written by their prankster little brother who was always on the lookout for a good laugh, surely they would get the joke after the first sentence, and be in stitches, rolling on the floor laughing. It was humorous! Unbelievably humorous, I say!

And did El Jefe Jeff and Co-worker Lara appreciate the cheeky way in which I tried to gently remind her that she did indeed need to lock her computer during her potty breaks?

Hmmm, let’s see:…let me answer those questions one person at a time: No, no, no, no, no–one for each sibling and one for Dear Mother–and no and no. Okay, maybe one of the brothers caught the joke and that it might have been mildly amusing at best.

But all other parties? Not so much.

Here I was, thought I was making outlandish claims that clearly weren’t true. Um…as it turns out, at least one unnamed sibling actually had pretty strong feelings about one or two of us other kids being Mom’s favorite. And, much to my dismay, I only discovered this when their shock and deep hurt was relayed to me by Mom. That wasn’t exactly my aim, but ----- if I didn’t bear fully responsibility for the fallout of the situation. And, on top of all that, Mom came thiiiiis close to changing her Hotmail password to one I didn’t know (for the record, I’m her de facto IT support, and had set up her email and occasionally needed to help her with combating spam, etc.).

As for Jeff, well, I’m just lucky he didn’t fire my sorry impersonating ass. Fortunately, that was the only blemish on my otherwise stellar record during my 16 months with Western Wireless.

Lara, on the other hand…well, it was even worse with her. She totally didn’t get the joke, and was absolutely pissed at me–so much so that, despite my profuse and multiple apologies, not only did she (a grown-ass 40-something woman) give me the silent treatment for 3 solid weeks, another co-worker that we were both friends/friendly with gave me the silent treatment as well.

There was no reasoning with them. It was insane: it was like, “What are we? In junior high? This is ridonkulous, I say!”

Welp, what can I say though, what you sow is what you reap, and again it all came down to my poor judgement as to what made for quality comedy.

*sigh*

If I could hop in a time machine and go back to have a little chat with my 20-something-year-old self,⁴…and my 30-year-old self…and my 40-year-old self…and my 42-year-old self… here’s what I’d would try so desperately to impress upon him:

In the end, it doesn’t matter if you made a person laugh if in the process you made them feel like crap…

Content created on: 25/27 September 2024 (Weds/Fri)