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)
Footnotes & References:
Leave a Reply