Guest Post by Carmen Sandiego

I wrote a whole post about how I was paid in coupons to visit a strip club, knowing that I could never publish it. The Internet is not about being stalked, but about creating the paranoia that you're being stalked. And I fully embrace that paranoia, especially when it comes to people who currently or futuristically employ me.

Yes, some people employe me in the future. And some people write employ with an e.

I probably haven't met these employers yet, so your guess is as good as mine as to who they are. I'm really hoping it's the tornado chasing branch of National Geographic that gets paid in coupons because its employees are being laid off left and right.

Stay tuned for more unsubtle hints about said missing post!

Segue!

I remember thinking how great it would be to meet my future husband as a 10-year-old. I didn't mean become a child wife. I just meant meet the other 10-year-old I would eventually buy a house with.

This was a very romantic idea, because of its plausibility. Maybe I had met that boy. Maybe it was that kid throwing potatoes at the dumpster when we went through the car wash.

[Cue part of Laura's brain responsible for delusions/Cue Laura's brain]

It was obviously a boy who had been to space and loved building forts out of kleenex boxes. Or moccassins. (Note: parents may pretend to enjoy moccasins made out of empty kleenex boxes, but they will eventually wean you from their preening. I suggest a large kleenex box fort to keep reality at bay).

Blah Blah

The right words gahhh809

Thinking is frustrating. So is writing. And so is logic come to think of it. Which is why there are so many non fucking sequiturs in this blog post and many others.

A man disappears for a decade. Police put out large reward now. Won't explain why.

This is a story I happened to *read* while at work. Admitttedly, I also wrote it. FUCK.

Anonymity is so hard on the internet. I feel cornered.

What would you do if a normal day was your superior telling you you need to drive to an international border town an hour away, question its residents Carmen Sandiego style about missing man, and you ended up in a strip club?

Be glad they can't take away what they've already given you? ie) 2 for 1 coupons you are hoping to pawn for bus tickets?

Someone disappears a decade ago, and their friends are in the same bar today. My official position is they're drinking the same beer.

The spot the missing man used to sit in? Have a seat. That was his view. Coffee?

Who serves coffee in a strip bar?

I say strip bar, because this ain't no club. It's more like a whatchamacallit... small-town bar with girls in bikinis. The lights are so dim it's got that classic bunker feel. A beach-themed bunker minus the sand. Complete with intrigue, and a "boss" upstairs who says he's coming down and never does.

But all this happened to me a long time ago. I was just reminded of it recently when I was sent down to a small down on the border with an hour to do my job, the only guidance being that it was a small town. Someone ought to know him.

This is a new holiday destinations for all you Carmen Sandiegos. I'll let you know when I come out with the 2009 best-kept secrets version, rated in number of geese. The book of wild goose hunts turned Who unstrapped my bra?

Come to think of it, that sounds like a trip to my basement.

Except instead of geese it is all the spiders I caught and released all winter. And all the jagged nails hooking onto my clothing without saying hello.

Not a Carmen Sandiego moment, despite my flowing red hair and yellow fedora. I figure I'm not big-city sleuth until I figure out how to make people trust me even when I look ridiculous.

"Tell me your feee-lings!"

(I stop to bite my pen and bobble my head - no bra!)

That sounds like I'm trying to hypnotize people. I do too much interviewing over the phone, and trust me it's difficult to avoid the dial tone of failure when you take the vow of silence and commence the bra-less seance.

But that's all laughs! HARDEY HAR HAR!

You didn't even read this...