Maybe in the next lifetime !!

AKA, Darnell Learns a Valuable Lesson

Well, this post is a bit of a topical departure, but simply HAS to be shared, as you'll see. If you must find a connexion to techno-sciency things, I'll share that at the very end. In any case, here's the long story slightly shorter...

A week ago, on tour, during break in the middle of a show, I notice this text from an unknown number on my phone:

I don't know a Darnell, my name is not Boo, and what is tagged? I figure it's a wrong number, and ignore it.

On the next break, I open my phone to see:

Ooooh shit. This guy has clearly not double-checked the number and this is some kind of incredibly awkward, desperate booty call text. I show my friends, and we discuss in amazement. Darnell likes what he sees, wants to get to know me "up close and personal!!" and "would really enjoyed" me, since he's no longer in a relationship. But a mere 13 minutes after his first message, it's "guess u don't have time for me."

"How does he know we're going to Sac??" my friend asks. (Earlier: "What the hell is sac?") Turns out, coincidentally, we all happen to be in San Francisco, and headed to Sacramento the next morning. What are the odds that this dude would message my Sacramento number the ONLY time I happen to be in town?

And what shall we do - tell him his mistake? Naaah. How about we invite him to our show in Sacramento? Or tell him to meet us for a midnight rendezvous in the middle of nowhere? Ask him to prove himself by cutting off his ear? Also: can we manage to do this without me getting pictures of dicks on my phone? I'd also really like to keep my current number.

The next day, we finally get around to crafting a response. Searching online, our friend Ms. T hasn't found Darnell, but has found the website Tagged. "I don't mean to sound racist, but it's almost all African Americans, and they look really... thuggish." "Wow, check this out - it looks like an old myspace page or something." While we concede it's probably best not to upset the thugs, we decide it's OK to mess with Darnell just a little bit. Since friend Mr. J is really into Sac ("C'mon, we gotta use Sac somewhere!"), we let him type it out:

Five minutes pass, and no immediate response. Should we text back "WHO DOENST HAVE  TIME 4 WHO, BIITCH ??" Naaah. He probably realized his mistake. The game's up. Or he's at work.

But half an hour later:

"Our time is coming"?? Did you really just write "our time is coming"??? I'm beginning to like this guy! ...Except that 30 seconds after "So I patiently await !!!", Darnell's writing "Hello."

32 minutes later, and:

You acknowledge your error? Oh buddy, you don't EVEN know. I gather my friends and read aloud to everyone, trying my best to convey grammar and spelling errors (c'mon man, try using "too" again - you were so close before!), and to evoke the feeling of a space followed by multiple exclamation marks at the end of every sentence.

And that feeling of impatience. A half-hour goes by, in the middle of the afternoon on a work day, and Darnell goes from "I patiently await !!!" to "Maybe in the next lifetime !!"

After laughs and discussions, we realize we're starting to feel sorry for Darnell. And furthermore, we feel like we ought to HELP him out. He's certainly got some issues, but he's not a mean person: maybe a troubled but alright kinda guy. We don't want to be assholes: we've messed with him, had our fun; now we'll let him down easy and try to give him some advice. Hope he doesn't take it too hard:

Nicely done, folks. And that's that.

Except 20 minutes later, my phone has 20 screens' worth of a giant fucking text message. Oooh boy.

This man not only ignores our confession, but takes his shit TO THE NEXT LEVEL. "A man of that nature has patience because he has an agenda that take steps to play out" - this could be a motivational poster.

See?

As for "I did not want or derive [desire?] anything from you but friendship" - oh really now? Do you remember writing "I like what I see" and "up close and personal!!" and "I would really enjoyed you"?

And, of course, at the very bottom of his 300-word text message rant: "And also your telling me you do not have a tagged account ?" Jesus, it's like we told him "there are no runners. There's no finish line. There's no one here," but he went ahead and ran an entire marathon, and at the very end, asked "and also your [sic] telling me the race is next Tuesday?"

At least the light has turned on. We wrap it up, hoping to make it even more extra-obvious than the last time:

And that's it??? EPIC blocks of text message, our time is coming, two hundred exclamation marks, and when you find out it's the wrong number it's just "Have a wonderful day"??

Wow.

Well, I hope you, Dear Reader, have learned something from this misadventure. I hope Darnell has learned even more. At the very least, consider this an oblique review of Tagged.com. Chalk one up for Life Lessons Through Better Trolling.