This morning I was talking with Leaky, my pet beagle.
“Nothing like a nice cup of joe in the morning”, I said as we walked back from the coffee shop.
“Yeah. But I saw cockroaches in the kitchen”.
“Huh? What are you talking about? You never even went near the kitchen…hell, the place doesn’t even have a kitchen”.
“So?”
“Well, did you or did you not see cockroaches?”
“Yes”
“In the coffee shop?”
“Well, in a coffee shop. In Guadalajara. Eight years ago. But nobody has to know that”.
“So in other words, Leaky, you want to talk crap about the coffee shop and its owner because…”
“Well, because I can”, Leaky responded.
“What do you mean?” I replied, somewhat dumbfounded.
“Well, I’m just a dog writing under a pseudonym. Nobody has the faintest idea who I am. I can say anything I want! I can say that Mark Gisleson is a closet Republican! I can say that PZ Meiers is a secret priest…”
“But none of that is true”.
“So?” Leaky added, a wry grin crossing his face. “I can say that Eva Young has posters of Michele Bachmann and that Swiftee has posters of Eva Young…”
“Oh, good Lord, Leaky…” \
“…and nobody can say or do a thing about it, because I’m anonymous – or, to be correct, pseudonymous”.
I walked, sipping my coffee. “But then if they found out your real name, and people could start digging into your past…”
“NO!”, Leaky yelled, stopping cold in his tracks. “DON’T EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT!” A glint of panic welled through his eyes. “THERE ARE SOME CRAZY PEOPLE OUT THERE”.
“Right, Leaky. And you…” I started, and let it go. “So in other words, you want to be able to write any crap you want without consequences, but you want to be insulated from the same thing yourself”.
“Yep”, Leaky said, panic having subsided, taking a sip from his mochaccino. “That’s pretty much it”.
“Oh. So…” I pondered, “if people were to know that your real name is…”
“NO! DON”T! I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”, he bellowed. sticking his paws in his ears. “I CAN’T HEAR YOU! NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA”
“Well, I mean, it’d only be…”
“NYA NYA NYA”.
“Oh, OK. Relax. Mums’ the word.”
“Cool”, he said, taking another slug.
“And the fact that you work at a prominent local…”
“NO! NO! NO! NYA NYA NYA! NYAH!”
I shook my head. “You are one strange dog”.
“Yep”, he said, calm as suddenly as he’d gotten exercised.
are you going to “out” me Mitch?
then everyone will know who my neighbors and business contacts are: that vast array of experts on every subject who’ve never been wrong (well lets be honest neither have I). People would quickly find that I live in the suburb of Laputa where I will be constantly beset by your legions of drooling Brobdingnagians with their rational arguments and clear indifference to my manifest intellectual, social and spiritual superiority.
““And the fact that you work at a prominent local…”
I’m guessing coffee shop.
I’m guessing coffee shop.
oh man how’d you guess? I sold Leaky his mochaccino, but I’m also the compliance officer!
God, I hope it’s not me. If it is I swear I’ll blog about Mitch’s failed experiment at Hair Club for Men!
I say expose the little doggy. He sure has no qualms about dinging on you.
I’m guessing that the neighbors of a certain little mutt would love to know he’s been driving around the neighborhood video taping their houses in a perfect display of Democrat avarice.