I was featured on somethingawful.com as the "awful link of the day" on 7/21/07. At the time, I'd made a jokingly phrased list of 30 fictional characters I'd have sex with. The link was posted with a bunch of drivel about how pathetic and creepy I am, being that I am some crazy bitch who lusts after fictional characters. (Never mind that I'm asexual or that the piece is supposed to be humorous. Whatever. I must be pathetic.) Anyway, as a result of this posting, a whole slew of losers poured out of the woodwork and filled my e-mail box with crap about how (get this) *I* need a life and also that I should kill myself.

Among these jackasses was someone who decided to send me messages while blocking his identity through the incredibly mature technique of using a fake e-mail address. He used "lol@lol.com," and commented on my "Bible as Thief Repellent" essay as follows:

lol@lol.com: LIAR

This was not a conversation you had, the "hide money in the bible" thing is a story/fable/theory printed everywhere.

Hmm, so I guess since he's heard it somewhere before, I must have never had such a conversation. Especially since I surely must be claiming the man I had the conversation with INVENTED THE IDEA of putting money in a Bible. Surely I'm making it up! Since ol' LOL gave me no way to respond, I just did what I usually do in such situations and fastened a short response to the comments below him, with "JACKASS" displayed the same way he'd typed "LIAR" for me:

swankivy: JACKASS

Someone really said that to me, I'm afraid. It's sad when people just decide for no reason that because they read something similar somewhere on the Internet, there's no possibility that it ever happened in real life. Well, I hate to be the one to inform you, but there really are people out there who have called tech support and thought their cupholder was broken even if you read it on the Internet before you heard it from someone who claimed it happened to them. Me, I don't recall any popular fable about hiding money in the Bible, but did you ever think maybe THIS GUY got the idea from one of the many places it's printed and then he said it to me?

Think before you frickin' type, you wastes of space. . . .

[Then I got this:]

lol@lol.com: Its the internet. Odd = LIAR

[I'm not sure I'm even supposed to be able to make SENSE of that, but I responded on the page thusly:]

swankivy: Oh look, a display of more incredibly poor logic! "ITS THE INTERNET" you guys; that means nothing I say is true!

Actually, the incident described in this essay happened on March 26, 2001, when I was working the register at a bookstore.

I went on to suggest that readers come to this happy little page if they want to see this story continue.

Because see, ol' LOL sent this as well:

Just so you all know, "she" instantly erases any post pointing out that her mix of being an easy lay but only to people she could NEVER possibly meet is clear evidence of some form of sexual abuse in her past.

[Putting aside any questions I have as to why I'm referred to as "she" in quotes (maybe he thinks I am a man?), I've got to wonder about why he thinks there must be a slew of posts of this nature. I only received one of that description, in the avalanche of ridiculousness that poured in from somethingawful.com .]

Ho ho ho! So, Mr. Hides-Behind-Fake-E-mail-Addresses is trying to call me out like I'm being DISHONEST by DELETING POSTS.

First of all, asshole--and I would have told you this PRIVATELY if you'd given a real address, but you give me no choice--that form responder is NOT set to automatically post to the page. I am not sitting there obsessively deleting stuff. The form responder is an e-mail forwarder. It sends your bullshit to my e-mail box.

And if it is a) off-topic or b) abusive, I do not post it. End of story.

There are plenty ways to offer and receive criticism without a shred of abuse. I will post any message that comes through my website as long as it is on-topic and is not trying to attack me on purpose. If you think my essay is worthless, that is fine--you can say so in a civil manner, or you can ignore it, or maybe (here's a thought) you can stop clicking on links from a site that claims to take you to crappy places in the first place. What did you think you were going to find? You CAME to my page to make fun of me. What am I supposed to do with that?

But in answer to this bullshit, I would like to say that there's no reason to believe I was abused just because I'm asexual. Anyone who says that just hasn't bothered to learn anything about the little-known subject of asexuality and is therefore ignorant and unjustified in speaking on the subject.