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August 05, 2004
indecent proposal
I was recently approached by an old friend at the DoD. It happened in the usual way; I picked up my phone to make a phone call, and suddenly Vance was there, talking to me, just as if my phone had been ringing when I picked it up. Creepy, but you get used to it.
"Joel, ole buddy, how's every little thing?" Vance said, with his usual interest in minutiae.
"Hey, Vance," I replied, trying not to sound nonplussed, "I'll tell ya, things, right now, are fannn-tastic." This was, of course, a kind of signal. For some reason, Vance wants me to say "fannnn-tastic" whenever things are actually just fine. He arranged this signal years ago. I don't talk like that with anybody else. And frankly, I don't understand how the word "fannn-tastic" would throw of Al-Qaida, or even NASA, but oh well. I figure it's Vance's game, let the man work.
"I understand you've started a website."
Suddenly I had a sinking feeling. "Ah, yeah, about that, I hope you know I would never--"
"Of course I know," Vance interrupted. "You're good people, at least you always have been. Your July 30th I Am Job post nearly had the boss crapping his pants, but I managed to convince him that sometimes the best place to hide something is in plain view. Which got me to thinking."
Uh-oh.
"The Department needs someplace to stash problematic data. We feel your site is perfect."
There he goes with the euphemism-speak; The Department (as if DoD is the only one we could ever be talking about) and problematic data...wait a minute, did he-- "Wait a minute, Vance, you're not serious about this?"
"Eyes-only stuff, m'boy," he crowed. "Your site is perfect because nobody actually reads it."
I began to be a little offended. "Well, funny you should say that, Vance, because I've been working on promoting the site. I've improved the meta tags, submitted it to several blog search engines--"
"Negative."
"Huh?"
"Negatory."
"Vance, speak English."
"Negatious. No how, no way. Cease and desist immediately. Shut. It. Down."
"Not gonna happen Vance, this amounts to censorship, and circumvents my civil rights."
Vance was silent for a moment. I could almost hear the gears in his brain working. Finally he spoke up: "How many visitors you gettin'?"
"Yesterday I had twenty unique visitors."
Vance erupted into a roaring guffaw which showed his drill sergeant roots. "Twenty! I bet they were unique, every one of 'em! Figures you'd have a site that only the kooks read!" More uproarious laughter.
Now I really was offended. Many of my readers are family members, and therefore possibly as kooky as I. But I have other readers too, some of whom I know to be decent and reliable people. Some of them are even living in England, a country often remarked upon for its reliability.
"Frankly, Helbling, I don't see a problem, as long as things remain stable."
I audibly sighed. I hate when people do that, but I couldn't think of a better way to express my resignation and futile objection to this new development. "Ok, how will I receive the information?"
"Oh, don't worry about that, we'll just slip it in there."
"Of course."
"I was not here, this conversation did not happen," Vance intoned, and then suddenly I was listening to a fast dial tone.
As I hung up the phone, I was musing about all the good and bad times I'd been through with Vance. He'd saved my life countless times, and I'd pulled through a time or too for him. Like that time we were both undercover as crab fishermen, and he got lanyarded, and washed overboard, and I clipped 2000 feet of heavy gauge steel cable to the mizzen, and dove overboard after him. Vance had a son soon after that, and named him Phillip after me (he couldn't actually name him "Joel" because officially I don't have any connection to or knowledge of Vance).
So I guess I'll grant this, as a favor to Vance, for old times' sake. As if I had any choice.
Posted by joel at August 5, 2004 10:07 AM
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Comments
"Is Vance your real name?"
Posted by: k_sra at August 5, 2004 01:44 PM
Ee-wa-kee, 43, and the letter C.
An infant in your lap can dampen your spirits.
What color is the boathouse at Fort Bragg?
Posted by: John McAdams at August 10, 2004 04:20 AM
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