I have never heard of Kelowna British Columbia (Canada). I don’t even know how to pronounce it — does it rhyme with Aloha? But last week I started to worry about Kelowna.
Or at least one person in it.
As “webmaster” in my part of the Google surveillance system, I have access to certain data. That’s right, when unprotected visitors come to this website, Google tracks where they come from, what they see, and how long they stay.
Sensible people don’t dawdle. They do a minute or two and get off this site with their brains and bearable attitudes in tact.
Last week, I saw this…
The horror. The horror.
See the (4) sensible people in Dublin, with their history of alcoholism and depression bailed off this site in less than 90 seconds. The (5) people of the sun in Phoenix were even faster. The smartest people (16) of them are from Ashburn — they spent zero seconds here. That’s a city with a good mental health community.
But a single poor soul in Kelowna spent almost 4 straight hours clicking 700 times and reading more than 350 pieces of bullshit.
This has happened before. One person spends hours on the site. But usually those people like “Tippy Gnu” and “Butterpants” leave comments. An obvious attempt to hold onto their own sanity by balancing this twisted view of the universe with something that makes sense.
But Kelowna spent 4 hours one day — nearly 3 the next, and nary a comment, or even a like. Seven hours of fat bikers, chiweenies and “deep thoughts” about how your God is a lie.
They filed through the LJBTC community, tales of Tucson and stories of Akron, Ohio with equal account. They waded into the depths of anti-theism and my pathetic stories of sex and gender.
They didn’t even get to the good stuff. They didn’t find the Lewis Black videos or my epic poetic screeds about how Pickleball Sucks.
You would think a lone reader from British Columbia would have found my second most popular story ever: Fucking Canadians (which has nothing to do with sex, and for those who can find the satire, isn’t really about Canadians…) But nope. My new Canadian reader never found the one story with their country in the title.
I know I can speak for you and say we are all scared for Kelowna.
If this resident was “normal,” surely they are not now. It’s December in BC. Is this person buried under the snow or waiting for an atmospheric river to wash the town into Okanagan Lake? Was this bad trip on the internet their last hurrah before the winter doldrums?
If they won’t see the sun for another 5 months, what hope can they have for salvation from the devastation this site must have wrought?
Solving Kelowna’s “Problem”
Knowing what I know, I feel compelled to save this town. Google has a lot more info, but not for me. I know Google could find the exact address, web history, likes and dislikes of this user. Google knows where they shop, what they make and probably how they voted.
Should I try to tap into that vein of info?
Naw, I don’t know how… If I did, I don’t trust Google. Those greedy bastards do the wrong thing at every turn. They don’t have to surveil us to make billions on advertising. They don’t need to know our home address and where we bank to answer our queries about beer, or politics or porn. But they do.
Should I reach out to the two cops in Kelowna to let them know they have a potential lunatic in their midst? (I’m guessing it’s a two-cop town…). Wait, is a mountie going to show up on horseback in BC in December? (Could the reader be Snidley Whiplash?)
Naw… No crimes have been committed (yet). No damsels in distress have been tied to the railroad tracks.
Should I reach out to my brother the fruit farmer/cider maker/plantation owner in Washington state to do a welfare check? He’s just one valley over on the Twisp River. Who should he check? What could he say?
Naw, he’s in Europe for 3 months anyway — they didn’t have a crop this year, so they are biking across Spain. Yep, there’s gold in them there organic fruit.
So I do nothing?
Naw. I write this bullshit story in hopes it reaches the right people, and they do the right thing:
Sometimes a person has one of those days where they just want to say “Fuck you” to the entire world. And if they happen upon your blog on one of those days, they become avid followers. I think this may be the deal with the guy in Kelowna.
Hence the fear. Interesting that we assume it is a guy. I did the same. But maybe it could be a female or other reader? Probably not.
If it’s a female then we could be on her shitlist for misgendering her. But I used the term “guy” in the gender-neutral, archaic vernacular sense.
Drowning in bullshit. Sounds like these modern times to me. Maybe it’s time to take up biking.
Maybe that will be the next label… douchebag millennial to Get Z to Drowning in Bullshit…
I think it’s worth a trip to Aloha to find this poor lonely person. Just as a welfare check. Four hours is a lot of time, but I’m sure they felt it was worth it, or perhaps they went and walked the dog and then fell asleep and forgot. I do that a lot these days.
We will need to get together and go play bingo some time.
Merry Christmas, Kieran.
I might wait till summer before going to BC from Phoenix… I’m worried, but not 20-degrees worried.