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Ducklings | Jun 09 2003

Someone is writing to me via the search function on Oblivio. Each week I receive a report that lists the ten most popular searches on the site, and in recent weeks someone has been doing the same searches over and over so that they appear at the top of the report. Last week there were eight searches for “u r an unabashed prick” and five for “fuck you asshole.” I’m not totally sure that “fuck you asshole” was bogus given that the most popular all-time search is “fuck my wife” (!), but there’s no question that “u r an unabashed prick” was directed at me.

Last week there were 14 searches for “but you are a jerk.” However this is nothing compared to the week of May 10, when the top seven searches were as follows:

Being a complete and utter asshole, I considered writing a piece in which this exact thing happens, only the searches add up to a love letter to me. That’ll fix their wagon, I thought. But then after a minute this seemed gross, and anyway I don’t really want to fix anyone’s wagon. If anything, I feel grateful to this person for transforming my search report into something I look forward to reading each week. Perhaps it’s the unabashed prick in me, but I rather enjoy imagining this person at his computer (he must be a he, I’ve decided), doing the same inane searches over and over, with what I imagine to be demented glee (my personal favorite: “and that means you mike boorish”).

Not that there isn’t something disturbing about this. The week before the top-seven avalanche, in what I believe to his first message to me, my search-crazy friend did a single search for “and that means you mike.” Meaning: he planned the avalanche in advance and wanted to leave this message behind, to be found after the fact. That’s creepy.

And speaking of creepiness, I realize that I invite more of the same, from him and others, by writing about this. Still, call me a total jerk fuck, but I could care less. Anyone who does 15 searches for “murder any ducklings lately j o” deserves a few paragraphs of public acknowledgement before finally realizing it’s time to get a life.