Joshy

Essays

Sep 30

Some days I want to throw my phone out the window, get a landline, and give only seven people the number. I want to delete all of my emails and social media and take a bath in a Japanese soaking tub at someone else’s house because I don’t have one, but need one. I want to get one of those old message machines with the tiny cassette tapes and record everyone’s messages, because these days they would all be spam. I want the spam on tape.

Sometimes I have AI construct an email telling robocallers and mass-texters that they have violated federal law because I am on the Do Not Call List. Other times, I have AI create a scarier email that tells them that by sending me an email, we have tracked their IP address and are now hacking their bank accounts. Sometimes, they start to freak out. When they text me the one where it’s my boss (I don’t have a boss) who needs me to buy gift cards, I take them down a rabbit hole where I don’t know which cards to choose, and I ask if they can just send me their Social Security number, please?

It would be cool if I could train my cats to respond to my daily deluge of emails. They would make good admins, but they'd probably ask for a Chewy gift card at the end. I couldn’t blame them; email is a slog. Or maybe they would respond to everyone with GIFs of themselves doing cool things like chasing a turquoise ball around the room and then carrying it in their mouth. It would be funnier when they got tired of the job and put on a vacation responder.

I think it’s funny when someone sends me a spam LinkedIn message about fixing my SEO and then is flabbergasted when I tell them to crawl up their own ass. As if I can’t blast them because we are on LinkedIn and LinkedIn is a business platform, and they are doing legitimate business by sending the same message to every podcast host who has ever existed, as well as their children, aunts, and pets. Get to crawling.

When I moved to Sarasota, I transferred from one State Attorney’s office to another. I made a couple of friends quickly, and one night we went out for a drink after work. I was happy to chop it up with some people in a new town, but I only had an hour because my kids were 4 and 2, and I had to take over dinner and nighttime play when I got home from my wife. I told them my kids’ names, Benjamin and Chloe, but we'd only known each other a week or so. I showed one of them a photo of my son, and he said, “Joshy,” in a voice I can still hear, thick with beer or two. I sometimes walk around the house and call my cats Joshy in the same voice.