Q: Can ammoforsale.com validate your existence?
A: Hell yeah!
…
I’m a blogger. Comparing normal human interaction to blogging is comparing a warm handshake to a freak stapling typewritten rants to telephone poles.
I wouldn’t have it any other way. For one thing, blogging is vaguely anonymous. This suits my desire for privacy and avoids scaring the neighbors. Of course the NSA knows what I had for breakfast but I’m not particularly worried about them; writing about broke tractors and foaming at the mouth about the deficit hardly makes me Tank Man. (Note, I said I wasn’t worried about the NSA, pissed off at them is an entirely different matter.)
For legal and logistical reasons, ammoforsale.com had to know my name and address. Thus I had to overcome a streak of paranoia a mile wide and deeper than the Mariana Trench. Then again… free ammo. Have you ever coaxed a skittish wild animal from a bush by holding out a piece of bread crust? For me… ammo will do the trick. Finally, I called their number. I was still fighting bronchitis and sounded like I’d recently been disinterred.
“Ammoforsale.com” Came an almost freakishly cheerful voice.
“I’m looking for [sumdood]” I croaked. No, I’m not telling you who contacted me. Just assume he’s rich, handsome, intelligent, well spoken, and wears a halo. He distributes ammunition, clearly he’s awesome!
With shocking efficiency I was transferred. [Sumdood] picked up the phone immediately.
“Are you [sumdood]?” My voice sounded like a combination of The Kurgan and death.
“Yes. What’s up?” Came the upbeat voice.
Was everyone there happy? I briefly entertained the wish that I was employed at this workplace where everyone simply radiated smiles.
“I am,” I paused, “Adaptive Curmudgeon.”
Several years of blogging and that’s something I’ve never said aloud. Sure it’s not as awesome as saying ‘I’m Batman’ but still, it sounded kinda’ cool. Akin to Jim Morrison claiming to be the lizard king… except with the voice of someone who had slept in a cement mixer… and I wasn’t a stoned rocker.
“Oh my God!” He was enthused. “It’s really you!”
I have never in my life received such a response. I tend to expect less pleasantry. I was ready for: ‘I should have know it would be you’, ‘you again?’, and even ‘fuck you’. Here was someone, an actual resident of earth, that seemed delighted that a croaking lunatic with a six syllable pseudonym was on the phone. The world is full of wonders.
External validation is a powerful thing. I pictured Sally Field babbling ‘I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me.’ No wonder everyone in Hollywood is a mess.
OK Curmudgeon, calm the heck down and close the deal. Keeping my inner dialogue to a dull roar I said something gruff and remote; “About this free ammo?”
“Oh yeah,” the guy said “what do you need?”
More in my next post.
