It takes a lot for me to use this here blogging space for actual blogging and not just cross-posting concert reviews. But my therapist told me that I need to exercise a creative outlet more often than just (two weeks) after concerts, so here we are. Maybe I’ll start posting more regularly again. Maybe I’ll tell this one story and disappear for another few years.

I woke up this morning, and as I do on workdays, I got up, walked to the bathroom, turned on the light, and walked away. It’s too bright, first thing in the morning. Gotta let my eyes adjust.

I went to the living room and looked at my phone. I had one new text message, sent at 3:01 am, from my friend Dave. It read:

Ol’ Shitty Dick

That’s it. No context. No explanation why he was up at 3:00 in the morning. Just Ol’ Shitty Dick.

I could not handle Ol’ Shitty Dick. Not then. Not before showering, not before coffee. I put the phone down and set about getting ready.

Once at work, I tried to figure out what to do about Ol’ Shitty Dick. Was it a reference to something? It sounded vaguely familiar, but from where? Or was it just familiar because this is totally the kind of thing we’d text each other?

I replied as follows:

wake up

stumble to living room

look at phone

1 new text message

Ol’ Shitty Dick

received: 3:01 am

set down phone

walk away

Dave was confused. I thought I had been clear, but apparently not, so I explained:

Well

I got a text from you

At 3:01 am

That read, in its entirety, Ol’ Shitty Dick

And I recounted my discovery of this message and subsequent confusion

Dave denied sending any message, let alone Ol’ Shitty Dick. I sent a screenshot showing he had. He sent a screenshot showing he hadn’t. A stalemate. I briefly contemplated the existence of ghosts, but then thought maybe that Dave’s wife got up, sent the message, immediately deleted it from Dave’s texts, and went back to bed, knowing that she’d messed with both of us. But while Jen is very funny, this would require her to be funnier than anyone I’ve ever met. Not impossible but a high bar.

I did also consider doing just this from my wife’s phone; logging in as her, sending a weird text at weird hours to one of her friends, then deleting the evidence and denying all knowledge. Obviously, by virtue of posting this here, I’m now unable to do that. It’s a free idea for you, though.

Dave and Jen talked it over and thought it must just be some weird glitch. Which is what I’d say if I’d sent a prank text from someone else’s phone too. But like I said, it did sound familiar. I scrolled back through old texts, but made it to the start of April without finding anything.

Then I had a meeting. One of those ones that I didn’t really need to be in and they weren’t feeding us. Bored, I looked at Twitter, and Alex Goldman, co-host of Reply All, my favourite podcast, tweeted:

If your phone sent texts randomly in the middle of the night last night, or you received texts people say they didn’t send, please DM me. This appears to be epidemic.

— A Goldman (@AGoldmund) November 7, 2019

 

If you’re wondering if I DMed him about Ol’ Shitty Dick, of course I did.

This tweet had been up for an hour by the time I first saw it, and he was on the case. Lots of people had received random messages overnight. And when they could be identified, they all seemed to be from Valentine’s Day, nearly 9 months ago. Maybe I just hadn’t scrolled back far enough. Were Dave and I texting on Valentine’s Day? If so, about what?

Well, we were. We were talking football. He was telling me about the Toronto Argonauts’ latest signing: a defensive tackle named Poop Johnson.

Technically, it’s Cory Johnson. Nicknamed Poop. Because he poops so much. The source of the nickname isn’t really relevant to my personal text message situation but I figured you’d want to know.

So, yeah. We were making jokes about Poop Johnson. First name: Poop. Last name: Johnson. Or, to put it another way, Ol’ Shitty Dick. Of the thousands of texts I send or receive in a year, that was the one the system held onto. The one it saved for me. It couldn’t possibly have been more perfect.