This morning I was talking with Leaky, my pet beagle.<\/p>\n
“Nothing like a nice cup of joe in the morning”, I said as we walked back from the coffee shop.<\/p>\n
“Yeah.\u00a0 But I saw cockroaches in the kitchen”.<\/p>\n
“Huh?\u00a0 What are you talking about?\u00a0 You never even went near the kitchen…hell, the place doesn’t even have <\/em>a kitchen”.<\/p>\n “So?”<\/p>\n “Well, did you or did you not see cockroaches?”<\/p>\n “Yes”<\/p>\n “In<\/em> the coffee shop?”<\/p>\n “Well, in a <\/em>coffee shop.\u00a0 In Guadalajara.\u00a0 Eight years ago.\u00a0 But nobody has to know that”.<\/p>\n “So in other words, Leaky, you want to talk crap about the coffee shop and its owner because…”<\/p>\n “Well, because I can”, <\/em>Leaky responded.<\/p>\n “What do you mean?” I replied, somewhat dumbfounded.<\/p>\n “Well, I’m just a dog writing under a pseudonym.\u00a0 Nobody has the faintest idea who I am.\u00a0 I can say anything I want!\u00a0 I can say that Mark Gisleson is a closet Republican!\u00a0 I can say that PZ Meiers is a secret priest…”<\/p>\n “But none of that is true”.<\/p>\n “So?”\u00a0 Leaky added, a wry grin crossing his face.\u00a0 “I can say that Eva Young has posters of Michele Bachmann and <\/em>that Swiftee has posters of Eva Young…”<\/p>\n “Oh, good Lord, Leaky…” \\<\/p>\n “…and nobody can say or do a thing about it, because I’m anonymous – or, to be correct, pseu<\/em>donymous”.<\/p>\n I walked, sipping my coffee.\u00a0 “But then if they found out your real name, and people could start digging into your <\/em>past…”<\/p>\n “NO!”, Leaky yelled, stopping cold in his tracks.\u00a0 “DON’T EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT!”\u00a0 A glint of panic welled through his eyes.\u00a0 “THERE ARE SOME CRAZY PEOPLE OUT THERE”.<\/p>\n “Right, Leaky.\u00a0 And you…”\u00a0 I started, and let it go.\u00a0 “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”.<\/p>\n “Yep”, Leaky said, panic having subsided, taking a sip from his mochaccino.\u00a0 “That’s pretty much it”.<\/p>\n “Oh.\u00a0 So…” I pondered, “if people were to know that your real name is…”<\/p>\n “NO!\u00a0 DON”T!\u00a0 I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”, he bellowed. sticking his paws in his ears.\u00a0 “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!\u00a0 NYA NYA NYA NYA NYA”<\/p>\n “Well, I mean, it’d only be…”<\/p>\n “NYA NYA NYA”.<\/p>\n “Oh, OK.\u00a0 Relax.\u00a0 Mums’ the word.”<\/p>\n “Cool”, he said, taking another slug.<\/p>\n “And the fact that you work at a prominent local…”<\/p>\n “NO!\u00a0 NO!\u00a0 NO!\u00a0 NYA NYA NYA!\u00a0 NYAH!”<\/p>\n I shook my head.\u00a0 “You are one strange dog”.<\/p>\n “Yep”, he said, calm as suddenly as he’d gotten exercised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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.\u00a0 But I saw cockroaches in the kitchen”. “Huh?\u00a0 What are you talking about?\u00a0 You never even went near the kitchen…hell, the place doesn’t even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}