A Second Letter

Hello public,

Thanks again to Gabe for publishing my second letter. If you missed my introductory note, for now you’ll have to rely on the following description to understand this one: my name is D.B., I’m a private eye, and Gabe has agreed to publish the dispatches I give him about my cases. Also, it should be acknowledged that I am fictional; any similarity between things described in these letters and real persons living or dead or events long past or ongoing is coincidental and “doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”*

My office is a nice little room in the basement of the Maeser building on the Brigham Young University campus. By day the room is a small library and study room that honor students use. They don’t know that when the day ends and they all drift out to go home, and as Jenny–an old friend of mine who runs the main desk–locks the building up behind them, I slip in and use the place for more practical purposes. Jenny’s a dear and always lets me in. She’s known me since sixth grade–some ten years ago–and knows I’m not about to steal anything. 



Last Friday night began like all the others. As Jenny locked the door behind me I shuffled down the stairs to my office. I was already anticipating the pleasure of putting my feet up on one of the tables and beginning to sift through local newspapers’ police beats.(When I’m in between clients–which happens more frequently than I prefer–I look for new things to investigate myself. You could call it community service.)

I stopped at the last stair. Jenny always turns the lights off–all of them. One look at the yellow glow under the closed oak doors of my office and I knew I wouldn’t be resuming my usual pro bono routine that night. I had company.

Close to the door now, I stood in the darkness and knocked. I knew who was on the other side. I knew who it had to be. But a man can’t be too careful in my line of work. Assumptions can get your goose cooked before you thought you had the feathers off.

“Come on D., you know it’s me,” came a familiar voice, “quit the drama.” I relaxed and went in. There, sitting in my chair, was Helen. “I’ve got a tip for you,” she said. “No guarantees, but it could be something big.”

D.B.

*Except for that last phrase; that was from Casablanca.

Oh. That’s Not What You Meant, Is It?

I came across two links online that had ambiguous meanings. Interpreted to mean things they were not intended to, they’re sort of funny.

Technology has not yet solved all my problems.

My pedigree chart (a tree-like diagram showing your ancestors) is on the New FamilySearch website. Each of my grandfathers is listed, with my grandmother’s name listed next to them. The next generation shows my father’s name and my mother’s. My name is at the end, and in the spot where my spouse’s name would be listed there is a button which says Add or find a wife. That’s a pretty convenient feature, I thought to myself. But it turns out, pressing that button is not as exciting as you might suppose.

Recently, I was enjoying pandora.com–which is surely a wonder of the modern world–just minding my own business. Then an advertisement appeared on the side of the page and, I must admit, it was intriguing. “Date 50+ Women!” it said. “Wow,” thought I (the jokes that can be made at this point are endless). “That sounds expensive…I don’t know if I could manage more than one or two at a time”. Fortunately, I decided against the idea. It was actually advertising a dating website for senior citizens. (But hey, maybe in a few decades I’ll look them up.)

P.S. My dad commented that the advertisement I got on Pandora shows what kind of music I listen to. It’s a fair observation.

Note: This sweet computer image came from blakespot on Flikr and is under a Creative Commons license described here.