Ear Torture & Dear Abby

Greetings, friends and frienemies. Normally I'd be working on my next article this time of day.

Instead I'm posting to the blog, because it is the only way for me to not think about the bleeding in my ears caused by the repetitive sound of a pre-recorded voice in my newsroom blaring "Attention! Attention! Attention! This is security! There has been an alarm..." That comforting line is then followed by a high-pitched squeal for about 10 seconds.

Apparently, we are to remain calm and continue working, the voice says. Of course, that's easier said than done with this audio-water boarding coming out of the loudspeaker system. Still, I'll try to be calm until the voice comes back on and follows the "Attention..." and the squeal with "Danger, Will Robinson." I swear it sounds like the same person/robot...and that person who does the "do not leave your bags unattended" voice in the airport.

Anywho, moving right along. There's a letter to Dear Abby in newspapers today from a guy in Rochester, NY, who says that while he and his fiance were on a visit to his parents' home recently, she decided that she was coming down with a cold. And since the guest room downstairs was so tiny, the fiance thought it would be smarter to sleep in the guy's old childhood bedroom upstairs, I guess so as not to give him her cold. Well, the guy's three brothers were also home for that visit. And their old childhood bedrooms were upstairs too. The next morning the fiance tells the guy she was glad he'd changed his mind and come to her bedroom the night before and made love to her. The guy was taken aback, 'cause it wasn't him. He told Dear Abby that he and his brothers are all about the same size. I assume he was talking about their height and weight, not their twigs and berries, 'cause that would raise another set of questions altogether. He said he confronted his brothers, but none of them will 'fess up. He also said his fiance still doesn't know it wasn't him. He hasn't told her.

This story smells. Dear Abby told the guy she found it hard to believe that even if he and his brothers were the same size, etc., their manner of touch, their smell, taste, etc., could fool his fiance. She also told him to confront his fiance and make her get tested for shell-fish and what not.

I do agree with Dear Abby about the fiance being fooled. I don't think it's possible that the fiance didn't know, not even if this guy and his brothers were identical quadruplets. My thing is I doubt the story is true at all. I think some loon sent it as a prank.

But who knows? I used to think all of Dear Abby's stuff was fake, until I got a call from her. Seriously. When I worked in Wisconsin, I learned one morning of a unique case in which police searched a man's home and took him into custody based on a tip that he had confessed to "dreaming" and fantasizing about doing bad things to his girlfriend's young daughter. He hadn't done anything. But he had the thoughts. The situation was tricky, depending on whom he'd confessed to. If it was a shrink, questions would have been raised about doctor/patient confidentiality, since he actually hadn't committed a crime...yet. Anyway, turned out he confessed via letter to Dear Abby. And it turned out she was the tipster. Against her long-standing policy of letter writer confidentiality, she contacted the police in Milwaukee and spoke with the chief. When the police chief confirmed to me later that was the case, I thought he was teasing. He said he wasn't and would prove it. Sure enough, an hour or so later my phone rings, and on the other end I hear "Hi James, this is Dear Abby!" It's like getting a call from Santa Claus, except she explained she was "Jeanne Phillips" and had been writing under the Dear Abby pen name for years, since taking over the column from her mom.

Sorry, I'm rambling. So folks, especially women, is it possible to hook up intimately in the dark, and mistake whom you've hooked up with? I say no. And if I was that guy I'd have three bruised and broken brothers right now, and one homeless fiance...who had given me my ring back.

UPDATE: The voice from the loudspeakers is back. Now, he's saying "This has been a false alarm. Please disregard. I repeat, this has been a false alarm, please disregard!"

What a tease. I don't trust the voice. I think the voice is like the Wizard...of Oz, conducting a giant lab rat experiment on us poor unsuspecting folks in the newsroom. Silence! We have a newspaper to produce.