Seriously, I was an anxious, paranoid, and painfully hyperactive little fuck.  The fact that my parents didn’t smother my 7 yr old self is testimony to their basic goodness as human beings. 

My dad was going on trip overseas.  I had just turned 7. I convinced myself I was going to die because my heart would just stop beating if I didn’t check on it every minute or so.  This, coupled with crippling shyness and overall 7-ness led to me cry for two days instead of actually asking anyone if this would really happen.

My parents were sure I was freaking out because of their traveling. My Mom sat me down and patiently explained that we would be fine because my Uncle Don with the secret service would check on us all of the time, right after he finished looking after the white house. Except I didn’t hear secret service. I heard SECRET SQUIRRELS.

I thought this was great.  By the next morning I was on cloud nine.  I was completely convinced that my Uncle Don and the secret squirrels would take care of me and if my heart accidentally stopped beating a squirrel (any squirrels and all squirrels) would be there to rescue me. I was sure that our SECRET SQUIRREL overlords were now on my side and Uncle Don had something to do with it all.

My second grade teacher noticed (much to her relief I’m sure) that I stopped crying and generally being an overly anxious pain in the ass. She asked me if everything was ok now and I replied that yes, everything was fine now that Uncle Don and the secret squirrels were stopping by the house. I elaborated further, of course, going on at length how Uncle Don was coming for dinner after he got finished at the white house and (clearly) he was bringing his special herd of secret squirrels with him, and lets not forget the numerous squirrels I saw on the way to school – all of whom had major impact on my beating heart.

This discourse nabbed me the first (of many) notes pinned to my clothes.

And, my family, to this day refers to the secret service as the United States Secret Squirrels.

Last week, I had to resolve a security/technical issue with NASA. The only ‘area’ having problems was airbase out west. I referred to said airbase as a secret squirrel airbase in an internal email to a minion. This pretty much guaranteed that my email would end up circuitously forwarded to my NASA contact. He referred to my security issue ‘area’ as the secret squirrel airbase for our next three meetings but, hey, nobody pinned any notes to my clothes.

Sometimes I feel I need to start a support group for children raised by spies. 

Instead, I’m just gonna post some adorable tidbits from my very unusual childhood.

Cause paranoia, etc.

ihaveabsolutelynoidea:

Time uses a picture of a young woman taking a selfie to demonstrate how fucked up our generation is

Why not use a picture of a 50 year old white male banker masturbating with mortgage papers into the mouth of a senator

“Why not use a picture of a 50 year old white male banker masturbating with mortgage papers into the mouth of a senator”  

I’ll be stealing this line.

(via so-treu)