Not Me I Swear

A recent Temerity Jane of from the incomparable Temerity Jane reminded me of a story I have not yet told on these here pages.  TJ, this one's for you.

Some years ago, I worked at an office job, and my project at the time was constantly being tweaked and adjusted, so my partner and I had a lot of free time on our hands.  Let's just say our coffee (or rather iced tea/Dr. Pepper) breaks were on the long side.  We also gave each other a lot of crap all the live long day.  Fun times.

So one morning, my partner, whom I shall call Mike, because that's his name, came around the corner of my cube for our usual first morning drink run.  But before we could hit the cafeteria, he wanted to show me something he's found on the internet.  It was no secret that I used my lunch hours to work out on the mostly unused equipment in the women's locker room, and he said I'd find this news story particularly relevant to my situation.  Apparently, one of our local reporters felt it newsworthy to report that tight clothing was harmful to women's health.  Okaaaaaay.

The story went on to say that the wearing of constrictive clothing, particularly of the synthetic variety, was giving rise to infections, fungus, and various assorted rashes  among the female population.  They showed a number of anonymous photos of heinous skin afflictions, many of which included oozing, and you just don't want to see that first thing in the morning, let me just say.  So I'm watching this, feeling very sorry for the distressed ladies and also wondering what else they did to bring this one because wow, that's some correlation to go straight from tight clothes to horrible skin disease and by the way where's your supporting data, when we got to the interview portion of our story.  It seemed there was one brave young lady willing to go on camera about her nasty, oozy outbreak.  And as she was telling her sad tale, her name flashed at the bottom of the screen.  

Only it was my name, too. 

Oh no.  Oh no no no no no.

My kind and empathetic partner nearly soiled himself laughing at my reaction.

Now, my name is not common (well, my first name obviously is, but my surname is decidedly not).  But here there was another me, and not only that, one who lived in my general area.  And it would be all too easy for someone to Google said name and location and think they were getting information on me and my ugly ordeal.  Not to mention all my local family and friends who might have seen this story on the 10 o'clock news.  

Great, now I was the Rash Lady.

I did Google said other me, and she is weird.  I mean, cops to belonging to some kind of cat-worshipping religion weird.  We are SO not even on the same plane here.  

I did note that she's single, so obviously my name is her birth name.  My fervent prayer is that she gets married, take her husband's name and get the heck outta my state.  I need several degrees of separation from this cuckoo bird.

I would like to state for the record that I have never had a rash like that from tight clothing or any other situation.  I'm not sure how you get pustules like that, but I'm assuming it takes some significant grodiness, and I am pro-shower.  Also, me and tight clothing? Will never be friends.

(My apologies for the overuse of words like ooze and pustules.)