April 3, 2018

I took one of those online quizzes to see if someone or something could guess my name, and it worked.

I mean, if my name is Wilbur.

Ha, I joke. No, the online person or thing, after having me answer a whole bunch of seemingly random questions, determined that my name was Michael, which, I guess, is close enough.

Of course, Michael isn’t exactly an uncommon name — and technically my name isn’t Michael, it’s Mike — but maybe I’m picking nits here.

I suppose I should be impressed that someone or something was able to guess my name based on some random questions.

But then again maybe I should be worried. Maybe the someone or something that guessed my name is Russian — or worse — a Facebook user.

I never really trusted Facebook. As far as I’m concerned, the less information about me that is out there the better. It’s not that I’ve done anything wrong, it’s just that I figure the less people know about me the better we will all be.

My wife and our 20-year-old daughter, Emma, don’t share my distrust of Facebook. My wife and Emma have thousands of Facebook friends. I don’t know how many Facebook friends I have but it’s not thousands.

A couple of years ago when we brought our assistant dog Caicos home for the first time, my wife set up a Facebook page for her. In less than 10 minutes Caicos had more Facebook friends than I do. The reason I know this is because Emma gently said, “Hey look, Caicos already has more friends than Dad. That’s literally hilarious.”

But if the Russians were to look at my Facebook page, they might think that I was a regular Facebook chatterbox. The reason they might think that is because my wife is constantly including me in her Facebook posts. And when that happens, somehow her posts wind up on my Facebook page, which I’m sure confuses the Russians.

“Da. He like college sorority event. Watch out for him.”

But maybe that someone or something didn’t hack my Facebook page to guess my name. Maybe someone or something guessed my name because of the way I answered the questions. It’s possible.

One of the questions asked in what decade I was born, and the choices only went back to the 1970s.

Sigh. You know you’re old when you’re too old to take online quizzes.

To continue the quiz, I had to say that I was born in the 1970s, which is clearly a lie.

Is that how the someone or something guessed my name? Are people who are named Michael liars?

I’m not a good liar by nature. I’m not smart enough to lie. Besides, when you lie you have to stick with it, which can be exhausting. Better to tell the truth and disappoint someone than to lie and then spend the rest of your life trying to remember what you lied about.

Besides, when you get to be too old for online quizzes you really don’t care what people think, which makes it easier not to lie.

Young Person: “Did you just take me beer?”

Me: “Yes.”

Besides, my first name isn’t really Michael. It’s Donald. But because my dad’s name was Don, my parents decided to call me by my middle name to avoid confusion. Either that or my dad took one look at me and said, “I don’t want him using my name.”

I’m leaning toward the second possibility.

Of course going by your middle name rather than your first name can lead to some confusion, which explains why my high school diploma (and I swear this is true) says “Michael Donald Pound” instead of “Donald Michael Pound.”

Oh well. At least it wasn’t Wilbur.