j040122 (imported)
January 22, 2004
Wow, life around here is boring, except for the parts I choose to not write about. Those are pretty exciting. Pretty damn exciting.
For example, the high point of today was that I was going to get a massage, but then realized my toenails need cutting first, because who wants to ick out the masseuse with talonlike toenails?
Now that’s some kind of excitement.
You know what is kind of neat? It’s kind of neat to have a skewed outlook on life so that you can write pretty funny stuff (if I may be permitted to brag, anyway) about mundane everyday things like slipping in the post office, getting a girdle, or watching your fanciest cat shit in the floor. I’m pleased to have a pretty good sense of humor.
You know what kind of sucks? Not being able to just make up funny shit. It’s like, I think, I sure would like to write something funny, but don’t ever seem to have any ideas. That bites.
Speaking of writing, I’m having a HUGE hankering to pen some fiction. Feel free to leave me some story ideas in the comments.
No, really. Do.
I was asked today via email what my fee to come speak to a group was. Might I just say that there’s something a little disconcerting about the notion that there’s someone out there willing to pay me to talk to them?
I explained what it would cost my business to be without me for a day and that I couldn’t in good conscience ask someone to pay that much money for me to talk. Develop software, yes. Talk, no.
And that was that.
Do you ever feel like weirdness just sort of follows you around?
Check it out:
From: JC
To: FredMy brother was telling me about your book the other day, and when he told me your name I about fell in the floor. Did you used to have the phone number XXX-XXXX? I live here in Huntsville and had that number about 10 years ago when I lived in Madison.
We have several funny stories regarding the calls we got for the “Fred Anders0n” that used to have that number, and we still talk about them to this day. I would love to share them with you if you are indeed the infamous “Fred Anders0n.”
If you are not, sorry for bothering you and good luck with the book (I’m looking forward to reading it.)
JC
Huntsville, AL
From: Fred
To: JCJ,
Thanks for writing — I hope you enjoy the book when you read it. With some trepidation, I’ll admit that XXX-XXXX was my number many many years ago (before my customers started calling me at home and I went the unlisted route) when I got my first apartment.
Do I want to hear these stories, or should I just be embarrassed?
Fred
From: JC
To: FredOk, the way we always tell it is: just before my husband and I got married, I moved into our apartment. The day my phone was to be turned on I called to check it and it said “this number has been changed to an unlisted number.” I knew I was in trouble because it had not been out of commission long enough for that message to stop playing and there must have been a reason why the previous guy is now unlisted.
Well, when I moved in and set up my anwering machine I did the standard, “We can’t come to the phone” thing cause I didn’t want it to be obvious who I was or that I was living alone at the time. Only a day or two after I moved in I had a message from this guy’s forlorn love saying “Fred, you said I’d be the only one. I can’t believe there’s someone else so soon…..”
I about died!
I’m sure it was sad for her but it was REALLY funny on my end
After that we got all sorts of calls. One time a headhunter called for you, he found out I was a computer geek too and tried to get me a job. We’d even hear from your mom occassionally forgetting that you’d changed the number. We moved across the county a year later and so got a new number but the first week in the new house your mom calls. She’d forgotten your new number again and calling the old one, got our new one. She was very nice
I think she was the last we heard from “Fred Anders0n.” I’ve forgotten a lot of the calls over the years but the girlfriend and your mom stuck with me. It’s so funny to finally know who you are cause you’re one of our family’s little inside jokes. (we have no life
J
From: Fred
To: JJ,
Boy, that message brings back some memories. The woman who left it is fondly referred to ’round our house as “the psycho” (on good days; on bad days we call her much worse). I met her in a chat room (oddly, this is where I also met my wife) and we started talking. When I mentioned I was a virgin, she came onto me very strongly, getting my number and calling me regularly over the course of a week. She wanted to meet in person, and we did, in Nashville. Then she wanted to visit me overnight, and in a fit of foolishness I agreed. She spent the night, and ultimately she got what I suspect she wanted all along (not that I’m a victim, it always takes two to tango).
Then she told me she was married, and promptly went psycho.
First came the phone calls, telling me how she “almost” left her husband to show up at my door so she could be with me. She did that every few days. It just got worse from there: she started contacting me at work, then my co-workers, and finally she started intimating that she was pregnant (which was pretty much impossible, given the circumstances of the one-night thing) without coming right out and saying “I’m pregnant.”
She was all about the mind games, hence her nickname. Finally, I changed my number (I’ve also had to change it because my customers started calling me in the middle of the night, which is what I thought your original email was probably referring to) to get away from her. She was creepy, creepy, creepy.
As for my mom, what can I say? Sometimes she’s a little ditzy.
Fred
From: JC
To: FredWell, that description definitely fits the woman on my answering machine. It’s funny to know the real story after all these years. I mean, she went on and on lamenting for a while. I remember thinking, I’m glad I got this guy’s phone number and not his address. This woman might just hunt me down!
J
I sometimes feel like my whole life has been one strange episode after another.
That story about the married woman could make a great book idea or even a movie. We never knew this about you :@
Hee. I wonder if “the psycho” knows that Fred is now famous. There would probably be much gnashing of teeth.
Wow, small world, huh? It’s more than a little creepy & scary that such insecure, desperate people exist in such large numbers, being as how I’ve had some similar experiences as yours.
Maybe this idea for a story sounds lame, but I’m gonna throw it out there b/c I love stories centered around animals. How about a story from a cat’s POV? Or a dog, whatever, I just know cats are ya’lls thing. I mean, The Incredible Journey was a big hit (wasn’t it?). Well, I loved it at least.
Elizabeth, ironically, I’ve been playing with that idea, but I just don’t think I could make it fly. My fiction talents leave a lot to be desired.
Dont’cha just LOVE them stalkers? I had me one. Got right tired of it real quick. Good thing when I’m PMSing my head spins round. The fool got chased across a parking lot the last time he got on my nerves heeee…
Haven’t been bothered since.
“I sometimes feel like my whole life has been one strange episode after another.”
I stil ascertain it’s the “Forrest Gump” effect!(He had a band of followers as do you,and had quite an interesting and varied life.)
Also,losing ones virginity to a pyscho kind of takes the romance out of it,doesn’t it ?
Hi Fred
When I first moved to the city I reside in now, I had a phone number that was one digit off from the local Oriental Health Spa (AKA another name for a place where you paid for other things besides massages) and I got strange calls all the time, asking if so-and-so still worked there, because she had ‘very talented hands’ and on and on….finally I complained enough to the phone co. and they changed my number. But they didn’t want to……I pestered them into it. Bastards that they are.
I think you could pull off the kitty POV thing… a band of kitties living in a home, maybe one cat is rogue…they could explain why they shit on stuff, and how they plot for the motherlode of human affection…all sorts of fun or menacing things.
My very first phone number was 1 number off from the local cable company. The morning after I had it turned on, I got calls starting at 7 AM telling me that they had cable related problems. I finally got the number changed.
The second number they gave us was great for about 4 weeks. When I came home from the hospital after having given birth to my oldest daughter we started getting phone calls starting at about 1 AM. I am not a nice person when I am awaken from sleep and since I was already getting little sleep because of my daughter…I was not thrilled with getting a 1 AM call telling me that they were calling about my ad in “The Seeker”. Then they would start asking me questions about my body and my ex’s body (we were married at the time obviously). I told them they had the wrong number..we had never placed an ad and they would get nasty. Calling me names for “Chickening out”. I did some research and found out that “The Seeker” was a swinger’s magazine!
The person who had this number before us must have placed an ad or else it was a typo that had listed our number in error. I called the paper and they were so rude…said they couldn’t do anything about it and that I had to live with it or change my number..which we did…again.
Luckily my Dad worked for the phone company since they only would change it for you once, then they would charge you to do it. My Dad got through the red tape and we had our third phone number in a month!
Once when we got a call my ex’s friend talked to the person and set up a meeting with them..that he never showed up for. He did it a few times before we finally got it changed.
It was so annoying back then but later we laughed about it. Thankfully I never had any trouble with any phone numbers after that..it was a strange initiation into living on my own (well sort of on m y own!)
Fred? Fred? Is it really you? Damn you for sharing our special love in your on-line journal! Baby…mamma still wants you.
xoxoxoxoxoxo
j/k
Fred, the journalist and author Nancy Rommelmann (http://www.nancyrommelmann.com — check out her article about hanging out with John Wayne Gacy on Death Row the week before his execution — and her blog, http://leavingla.journalspace.com) and I are both writing short stories about a drunk kindergarten teacher. This is based on an off-hand comment one of Nancy’s reader’s made about her alcoholic kindergarten teacher, and another off-hand remark that Nancy made about that sounding like a good idea for a story. So I suggested we both write one. Nancy’s done, I’m doing mine tonight, and if the idea gets your creativity flowing, you’re more than welcome to do so as well, of course. (So is anyone else who wants to join the drunk kindergarten teacher fun.)
Well well well Fred,, so you have a sordid past eh? LOL
Just kidding. How funny that this person emailed you and was able to share all that with you! I used to worry about moving and some strange mail going to my old address and wondered what the new tenants thought of me..hehe like we used to get unsolicited sex catalogs etc..
Probably only a day or two after my ex and I moved to this town, I got an early morning phone call..
“Hi, is Buffy ready yet?” asked the caller.
Huh? I told the caller (who sounded like a teenaged male) that he must have misdialed, that there was no “Buffy” at this residence. The caller seemed very upset, almost in tears. “Isn’t this the Animal House?” he asked. Oh crap, I thought, not here in town for a week yet, and the prank calls are starting. I quite rudely brushed the caller off, thinking he was asking for a stripper, or worse, and hung up.
The calls continued for weeks until I wisely asked one elderly lady exactly what the Animal House was. Turns out, it was a pet grooming business. Apparently, the customers were allowed to leave their pets overnight and pick them up very early the next morning. The telephone book had misprinted the business’s number to OUR new phone number. So for a year, I had to endure early morning calls for Spot and Rover and even once a parrot named Bob (toenail clip). Yeesh.
Fred, the phone number thing could work into a good mystery…over the years a person receives these strange calls…and at the end, Bob shows up and asks, “Are there any messages for me?” Seriously, it could be quite good. Forget the “Bob” thing……..
Fred,
Remember your entry about the rude young girl in the coffee shop complaining about her ham and cheese bagel (or, whatever)?
That story still sticks in my mind. You wrote it so well, and the characters came to life. She would be a wonderful character and that is a great scene–and hey, it is pretty much already written.
My favorite part was when the guy behind her counter asked her something and she backs up shaking her head, overreacting as you said, “like he suggested that she go lick the diarrhea stains from the toilet seat,” or something to that effect. Classic Fred…
;-) Robert
A story idea? Hmmm. A murder mystery with the “psycho stalker lady” being the victim and one of your cats being the detective/witness/murderer?
Tubby did it in cold blood because he saw the whole thing?
Robert, isn’t a sad thing when someone’s best writing always seems to revolve around stuff like poop and farts? And, ironically, I thought of the rude girl from Atlanta Bread just this morning when I was there. I’ve no idea why, but it sure was odd to come here and see that someone had mentioned her in the comments.
Last time I was writing short stories I had an idea for a theft at a candy factory. Not just any theft, either. This theft would be of the super-secret recipe for Fruity Toots, the candy that gives you fruity smelling gas in eight different flavors: Cheeky Cherry, Sassy Apple, Blueberry Blast, Gusty Grape, Wafting Watermelon, Squeaky Strawberry, Poofy Peach, and Raspberry Razzer.
I decided to pass on that, because it would be best suited for a kid’s book.
Farts, though, are comedy gold.
It’s weird how the writing thing seems to hit me every winter. I don’t know if it’s because I’m inside more or if that’s when I read mostly fiction (I go through phases on fiction/non-fiction). The book I’m reading right now, Subterranean, is pretty good. Not great, but entertaining and not shabby. The funny part is, as I’m reading, I keep thinking, “I could write something this good,” which I suspect is what’s driving me to want to write. Usually I don’t think that when I read something by a big-name author, because I know my limits, but I think I could write something as good (at least after many revisions) as this book.
more bad pnone numbers… I had one that used to belong to a limo company and every Fall and Spring I’d get calls from prom-going teens wanting to rent a limo.
My cousin got the phone number of a defunct pizza parlor and he had to listen to take-out orders all the time. He got tired of telling people they had the wrong number, he finally resorted to saying “OK, that’ll be ready in 20 minutes for pick-up.”
The worst is a friend who got the number of a golf course…. every weekend he’d get calls at 6 am from people asking for a tee time.
I think the idea of fielding someone else’s phone calls will be a great story… murder mystery? or maybe a ghost story?
Now THAT is some funny shit. Why worry about making it up, when you just live it ??!!
Too funny!
Wait till psycho chick finds this website or has seen you on tv….you better lock the doors real tight!!
Can the cats attack on command?
You could write a story about a mad woman that preys on unknowing internet chatters.
Make her do all kinds of zany things, and flip out.
It could be cool.
(names have been changed to protect the innocent) LOL
I BET SHE HAS A STORY TO TELL ABOUT FRED ANDERS0N!!
( better watch out Fred, Nat’l Enquirer may be the next one phoning you!) That’s what happens when you hit the big time. All the wackos come out of the woodwork to tell their version of the real you.
Fred, Maybe you could go get your toenails clipped at the Animal House??? Just a thought
About the rude girl in the Atlanta Bread Co.
No, no, Fred - you misunderstood what I meant about your writing. It wasn’t the “poop and fart” mentality, “Heh, heh, Fred told a fart joke” kind of thing. That incident was very well written and was not so funny. It was very true and kinda sad. It made me think, “If I were in line, would I have said something to that crazy girl? If I were behind the counter serving her, would I have refused to serve her?” (The customer is not always right). For whatever reason, that story stuck with me. Down to her embarrassed but quiet boyfriend.
Your description of her unnecessary overreaction, shaking her head emphatically, moving back and almost stepping on your foot (See I remember and I haven’t read it in months and months) was excellent. I say this is grounds for a character you’ll remember, situations that ring true. However, pass on the flavor-fart stories unless you want to write Captain Underpants tales. My son would like them.
How about a vote on the rude girl premise for a character for a story? Which day in the archives is that entry on? How about a link?
I’m telling ya, it’s a great read.
;-) Robert
Robert, it’s here:
http://journal.vituperation.com/bp.php?page=/2003/May/j030530.html
(Or, you can click on the “archives” link and go to May 30, 2003)
Dang, woman. How’d you find that faster than me? I was a grepping mofo all through my stuff, looking for “Atlanta Bread”, but it turns out I never actually used the name of the place in the entry.
Robert: thankya for the comments — I don’t know if I could use her as a character or not. Those militant mullet sporting feminist types get on my nerves something awful.
You know, unless there are some reading this.
Oh man…how strange is that? I can’t believe he had your number & got messages for you.
That woman (if you want to call her that even! sounds crazy & she wanted to take advantage of you.I think that just sucks.When a man or woman is done that way..it’s wrong.What a sad way to lose your virginity.Sigh
Glad you moved on & found a wonderful woman like Robyn.You deserve her!!!!!!
Thanks so much. I enjoyed it the second time around as well.
Maybe she could be one of those throw away characters that gets killed off somehow.
I’m just-a-saying…Let’s say you are reading Fred’s fiction book that you picked up at Walgreen’s while you were waiting on your RX and read (from Fred’s May 30th entry):
“Would you like your sandwich on a sliced bagel?” the cashier asked.
From the girl’s response, one might have thought the cashier asked her if she’d ever considered licking one of those sticky-looking diarrhea stains you sometimes see on public toilets. She was aghast at the notion of having her breakfast sandwich on a sliced bagel.
“No!” she screamed, taking a step away from the counter and almost bumping me. She shook her head violently from side to side, punctuating each shake with another negative. “No, no, no, no, no!”
“What would you like your sandwich on?” the cashier asked. She looked a little scared. (end)
Like, how could you not read on?
;-) Robert
twice i’ve had the phone number screwed over.
one time it was a “7″ instead of a “1″ on a flyer sent out and you got our house instead of a gardener’s nursery. my husband began answering people questions. “what kind of tree do I need for a lot of shade?” and my husband would say things like “you need a tree with a lot of leaves.” OR “how do you plant apple trees?” and reply”In the dirt.” then they made the same typo on a flyer for poinsettas at christmas. we got crazy people calling at all hours demanding to know the price of poinsettas.
the next time, it was published in a local paper as a number for fair information for senior citizens and we told the old people they had to be escorted by someone under 50, that it was a new fair rule. we were just doing our part to keep the old people safe from the tilt-a-whirl.
How about a thriller with clues revealed through geocaching? Just a thought.
Fred, the forums have gone, or is my computer playing up? I reread all the journals entry to see if you’d mentioned it, and couldn’t see a comment.
Thanks Pauleene
Completely off topic, but I was wondering if you’d ever considered applying for Survivor? IIRC, you and Robin are huge fans and I think it would be a blast to watch you on the show.
Serra,
While I think Survivor would be fun, and I’m a big enough conniver and ass to possibly do well enough to not be the first person voted out, I wouldn’t want to be a conniving ass in front of millions of people.
I’d much rather be in Boot Camp II, if Fox ever decides to do another one.
fred, are you choosing to ignore my question re the forums?
I wasn’t, Pauleene, I got sidetracked by the Survivor question.
The forums are gone. I explained the whole thing on the notify list because I wanted to keep it out of the comments.
Okay your forgiven
I was on the notify list, but I never get notified. 
Oh well them’s the breaks