BUSTED!

When I went to work yesterday, having my secret identity as a "liberry" blogger unearthed was the furthest thing from my mind. It was about to happen all the same, though.

Nearly nine months ago when I first started writing this blog I knew in all likelihood I was eventually gonna get caught. Sure, I tried to be careful about who and what I wrote about. Well, a little careful. I did rename most of the people and places that showed up—sometimes thinly—to limit the clues within the blog itself that could lead back to me. However, I've been plenty sloppy in a lot of ways too. Sometimes this has been intentional. Sometimes not.

It's one thing, however, to not care if readers in other states and indeed other countries know my secret identity. It's a whole other ball of dung for someone here in the Tri-Metro area to find out and that's where the sloppy comes in.

I didn't realize just how sloppy I was in other less obvious ways until a few months ago when I started checking my stats and saw the kind of search engine searches that sometimes lead people in my direction. (And by the way, what the hell kind of person does a subject search for "Chris Farley's Dead Ass," anyway?) The stats showed me that even having such words as "West," "Library"and "Virginia" in proximity to one another on the same page could lead people right to my door if they were merely doing a search for something using those words. There are plenty of other words that, while innocuous enough on the surface, could lead someone local to the blog. So I went back and changed some references, eliminated others and tried to tart the place up a bit to further decrease the chances of someone accidentally stumbling in.

Still, there's only so much you can do to disguise yourself if you're writing a blog about working at a "liberry" in WV to keep those terms from coming up. Eventually, the state and the word library are gonna get together and someone is going to find them in a search. With that in mind, I figured it was likely that someone from library HQ would eventually find me. They may already have. If so, they don't seem to be inclined to rat me out to my boss, Mrs. A.

Frankly, though, I wasn't too concerned about being ratted out that way. I think most of my co-workers would really dig the blog and would quickly become some of my more avid readers were they to learn of it. I've even considered letting them in on it if only to get more accurate reporting out of them on the crazy stuff that happens while I'm not at work. I decided, though, that doing so would cause a chilling effect on what I could say. Granted, I've always made it a point not to talk too much trash about my co-workers, (except, of course, for those who abandon their jobs and make me have to pack up all their interlibrary loans on a day I would otherwise not have been at work—thank you oh so very much, Miss E). Still, I'd much prefer the freedom in which I have the choice to behave myself.

I figure they'll eventually learn of it, either by admission or by someone ratting me out. My hope is that if they're angry at me, it will be because I didn't tell them about it sooner.

No, my imagined worse case scenario was much different. In it, I would go in to work one day, walk back to the computer hall and find somebody there reading my blog. They would turn and look up at me with realization in their eyes and then either wink knowingly or give me the finger. Worse yet, what if they came up to the circ desk and yelled at me about it? Even worse still.... what if it was PARKA? That chest hair entry alone would net me at least a bloody nose. Hell, the rest of my rogues gallery practically rivals Spider-Man's already! Sure, I might do okay one on one with most of them, but what if they ganged up? Carol Satan would tear me to shreds with her talons! Wal-Mart Jesus would clock me with his cudgel! Ron the Ripper would try to rip me, or at the very least fart on me! And Cap'n Crossdresser would hit me with his purse!

No sir... I don't like it.

Like I said, though, when I went to work yesterday, I wasn't thinking about any of the above scenarios. And when I left to go on break, I still wasn't thinking of them. So when it happened, it took me by surprise.

As per my usual Wednesday afternoon routine, I ambled down to the local "mall" comic book kiosk, to see what the new shipment had brought. Garin the comic book guy was there at the desk as usual. For some reason, he seemed especially happy to see me. He just kept saying my name over and over, taking an unwholesome amount of glee at some unrevealed nugget of information. I was oblivious.

"You will NEVER guess what I saw... on... the... internet," he said with a devilish grin. Still, I was clueless. I was somehow picturing that he'd found stills from the new Sin City film adaptation, or the full script for Spider-Man 3, or clips from Catwoman: The Version that Didn't Blow Goats.

Garin continued, slowly letting out his verbal fishing line in preparation for yanking it back suddenly. "I found a website that mentions me and my shop."

That's when it hit me and I instantly knew I was busted.

I always expected such a busting to come with the requisite chills and stomach vertigo that usually accompany major revelations. I didn't get so much of that, though. I must have at least looked properly shocked for a few moments, because Garin just continued grinning triumphantly. Pretty quickly, though, I settled into my new role as the grinning little low-carb dieting kid caught with his hand in the Nutter Butters but who knows he's far too cute and adorable to be punished.

What had happened, as Garin explained it, is that one of his customers decided to look his shop up by name and see if it had a website. They typed the name into a search engine and came up with some ebay entries as well as a little blog entry called The Fix Is In. They took a gander at it and alerted Garin that someone was writing about him on the internet.

"So I see this Tales from the `Liberry' site that mentions my shop," Garin said. "I knew immediately who had to have written it! Just the language you used was SO EXACTLY YOU."

Not only did Garin read his own initial appearance in the blog, but read most of the other entries as well and liked them. (Hey, I told ya I was cute and adorable!) Even my slightly less-than-favorable early review of his store, ("I can't say this one ranks with the best of them. But then again, it's only a kiosk store—what can you really do with a kiosk store?"), written a mere one month after he opened for business was met with smiles and appreciation for my honesty. (And just for the record, I also predicted that his store had a lot of potential and in the ten months since then he's proven just what you CAN do with a kiosk store. It's become quite the quality comic retail outlet. *WAVES TO GARIN* In fact, Garin's search engine search also turned up an award he'd won from Marvel Comics themselves, but which no one at Marvel thought to tell him about.)

Garin's one complaint to me in the whole matter: "So why didn't you tell me about this sooner?"

I explained that I was trying to keep things on the Q.T. as far as local publicity went. As much as I didn't care that he knew about it, I'd much prefer most other locals NOT knowing about it. Particularly the mentally-unbalanced locals who occasionally turn up as subject matter. 

Then, as if somebody rang the crazy bell, who should show up at the kiosk right on cue... Doc Oc-Fetishist Woman!

This time she wasn't looking for the New Doc Ock or the Old Doc Ock or any Doc Ock. Instead, she had come to see if Garin had any other toys for her husband. Sure enough, a great huge Fantastic 4 Four Pack set of figures has been released, including figures of all four members of the FF plus Franklin Richards, Doctor Doom and even Robbie the EFFing Robot. This, apparently, is what DOF Woman's husband had ordered and she was overjoyed at its arrival.

Naturally, there had to be a wrinkle, though. In addition to the Fantastic Four Pack, a brand new Thing figure had also been released, which was a different sculpt than the version of Thing already in the pack. Garin just wanted to call her attention to it in case her husband was interested, as he knew the guy liked the FF characters. This completely threw Doc Ock Fetishist Woman into a tizzy, though. Garin had to explain to her several times that her husband hadn't ordered the extra Thing so she didn't need to buy it, but if her husband was interested it was there. I had to walk out of sight of her to keep from cracking up laughing as DOF Woman struggled with these concepts for a couple of minutes, dancing perilously close to but never actually crossing the line into understanding. Finally Garin took the extra Thing away from her and told her he would hold on to it and save it for her husband should he want it.

"You'll save it for him then?"

"Yes."

"You'll save it for him then?"

"YES."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I cannot make up shit that crazy!

So guess what, Garin... If I do get drummed out of the library for this blog, I'm moving into your comic shop and starting a new blog there. Seems like it's just another station for the local Crazy Train.