Was I Arrested?
Google provides a nifty little service. Years ago, I registered my name with them, requesting an e-mail every time ‘Andra Watkins’ is mentioned in the byzantine world of the web. With the proliferation of reviewing sites, I wanted to keep tabs on client chatter, just in case any of it verged on the, um, uncomplimentary, a hazard in any profession dealing with multiple umpteen people.
Saturday morning, my inbox pinged. ‘Google Alert!‘ it announced in the subject line. Always aroused by seeing my name in print, even if it is electronic, my hyperactive fingers clicked the provided link.
Tunnel Hill Drug Bust shouted from the headline. Where the heck is Tunnel Hill? I wondered, lazily perusing the story from the comfort of my bed.
Marijuana.
A car chase.
ANDRA WATKINS.
Huh?
ANDRA WATKINS BEHIND BARS.
And, get this. Andra Watkins is a GUY. Male. One dumb dude.
Have you ever found your name associated with something unsavory? What could be worse than being given a sex change, labeled a dope head, and thrown in jail, Dear Reader?
YIKES! I guess we always did wonder what you did on all these “Business trips” wink, wink. Now we know, a cross dressing pot head….tsk, tsk.
It was freaky to click that link. I wonder whether any of the world’s Lou Mello’s have shady stories………….
I have no clue, I have never Googled myself and no plans to do so, scary enough just knowing me.
The second page of a google search for your name turns up video of Luiz Mello.
i’ve found two “me’s” through google alerts. a few years ago i learned that i’m a very well off 60ish year old man in vancouver, bc, who was arrested with his son on petty theft charges. more recently i’m also some drug dealer who was arrested somewhere in the mid-west (we just shared a middle and last name though).
apparently i’m no good.
That’s what usually happens when a regular person ends up on Google…….they’re up to no good.
Always thought you and MTM were growing something back there behind the house. Why would you need that shed anyway? That’s right, blame it on the college students, but now we know the real truth.
We’re getting ready to tear down the shed. Guess we don’t need it anymore.
Share the wealth!
There’s another Andrea Boccucci in the world. He lives in Italy. So you’re not the only one with a cross dressing alter ego.
I’m sure his name carries the very romantic Italian pronunciation……what is it with our names that make them unisex?
A boy named Andra…
There was also an Andra Franklin. He played for the Miami Dolphins.
I can say I’ve never googled my name – I’m too afraid of what I might find.
With alerts, it gets sent to you. No Googling.
There are so many Steve Mitchells in the world; online, I can almost hide in plain sight.
Maybe I should get a new Facebook account and only friend other Steve Mitchells . . .
Someone on Pinterest connected with me a couple of months ago. She only connected with Andras.
Being friends with yourself on Facebook really doesn’t improve the experience these days. You’re not missing much.
Our babysitter had a minor car accident one day, to be then locked up in a police cruiser upon discovering that she was “really” a fugitive delinquent from Louisiana, with the same name, height, hair and eye colour, birthday and the same mother’s name… That one took quite some sorting out, apparently!
That is the scariest thing to contemplate, being confused with someone who’s done very bad things, and trying to get the people involved to ignore what it says in the computer.
Any Google alerts for my name, show this (or variations) about 3 times a week – but it still pales in comparison to the number of times somebody forwards me the email: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/askjack/2010/mar/17/virus-warning-simon-ashton – whether seriously or not.
What I love about this story is the Guardian’s technology guru poses with a pipe in his mouth. The rest of it……..sorry, Simon. Does it make it worse that it’s a hoax?
There was another Jill Clary IN MY HOMETOWN! And I’m from a smaller than yours hometown! Fortunately, she was enough younger than me that we were never at the same school at the same time. And, we didn’t go to the same chuch (you small towners out there will understand the importance of that).
I hope she’s never done anything you wouldn’t do, Jill.
I am unique. The only other William Peter Smithem I am aware of throughout our recorded history is my great grandfather. Far as I know he was never arrested.
There is a William Peter Smith, who may still be living on Long Island, whose mere existence caused an error in my name on my NYS drivers license to persist for the better part of twenty years. Seems the rocket scientists who programmed the DMV computers designed the system to only look at the first five letters of the last name when doing a search (a sensible way to speed up the search) and when the correct name was entered, the computer was convinced he and I were the same person, refusing to allow the change as they never looked at the full last name. Duh!
My attempts to correct this every time my license came up for renewal failed repeatedly until the time the DMV was really busy and a supervisor, who knew someone with the magic override codes, called Albany while processing my renewal and had it corrected.
How very nice of that person. It really is scary how much people rely on what they see on the screen.
When we were in grad school, and I have NO IDEA how they found this, some friends of ours discovered and provided graphic proof that Scott Merriman (my husband) was a gay porn star in the 1970s
I knew you had that connection. I hope they were joking with the graphic proof. Did they photoshop his head onto the, um, compromising photo?
No — they just produced a black and white image printed off the microfiche reader. I LOVE that the University of Kentucky archived the magazine (I don’t remember what it was) in all its erotic glory. I’m sure it was lost or destroyed upon the migration to digital.
Oh, I bet somebody migrated it………
I do hope so.
I can’t say that I’ve shown up unsavory, Andra, though I do, indeed, show up. People have found me and contacted me for the oddest of reasons.
My eeriest experience with my name in print came many years ago, before the internet. I was named after my grandmother, Penelope. When she died, there it was, her obituary, my name. It was a strange feeleing to see it in print. I kept the feeling to myself for a long time, but, eventually mentioned it to my mom who said, with some tears in her eye, that people had approached her and asked if it was her daughter who died.
That would have to be an eerie experience, Penny, especially since we’re not supposed to read our obituaries in print, in theory, anyway. I can imagine that would’ve been really hard for your mom, who grieved the loss of a parent while having to explain the non-loss of her daughter.
Have you ever found your name associated with something unsavory? What could be worse than being given a sex change, labeled a dope head, and thrown in jail, Dear Reader?
How about reading “my” obituary??? Is that worse?
Yes. Worse.
In my hometown there was another set of twins named Whitney and Britney Pendergast our name was pandergrass and they were about 3 year younger than us. But during my 6th grade year my parents went to Hawaii and we came home one afternoon and there was flowers, cards and messages about how sorry everyone was our parents had died. Needless to say we freaked out! Our parents were fine but the other twin parent had died in a house fire. It was very eerie and overwhelming at the same time.
Wow. Another case of mistaken identity that had to be stressful. Mistaken death would always be awful to deal with, I would think.
Because my name is not uncommon, i find many others; just a few include a consultant in Maryland, a lawyer in Kansas, a quilter of some renown in Washington. I choose NOT to dig further for less impressive examples.
What tickled me most in the article about the “other” Andra was the list of charges pending . . . “possesion (sic) of marijuana, intent to distribute, and improper lane change.” Yeah, that last one is a biggie!
In the television story, his name was spelled Andre, leading me to wonder whether they misspelled it in the story. That is even funnier, and more random.
All of your alter examples are impressive, Karen.
Another thought….. Did you realize that the TV station carrying this little tale is in Chattanooga? A TN connection makes this tale even a bit more bizarre…..
I saw that. I was a little freaky, I have to admit.
I hope my alter ego would choose something more novel than pot dealing to qualify as mad, bad and dangerous, Kate. It would be so much ‘badder’ to be a mafioso or something……….
That would be fun, but every thing good or bad is me. Well, there is one other person with my name, but she is under age…and well…not quite so public.
It can be good for a laugh, Meg. (Once you confirm it isn’t you being written up.)
The last time I checked I was the only me out there, but I suppose I should probably sign up for that myself. I am incurably self-involved
I like your double life, Andra. It’s so very duplicitous…
Signing up for it cures one of self-involvement pretty quick. The silence in the inbox and all that……..
I haven’t a corresponding story, and I’m glad for that! How odd this must have seemed, Andra. I have had friends caught in the nightmare of identity theft, and that’s a dreadful reminder of how our names can be misused! Good for you, though, for being your own watch dog. Odd circumstances! Debra
I don’t know how anyone would mistake me for him, but one never knows……..on a computer screen, everyone looks the same, don’t they?
I don´t know if it´s the way you put it but, it sounds like a very interesting situation for fiction writing. I think I read sometime in the past that you were preparing a novel. If it is so, how is the work going? You have a granted buyer on me (I hope this comment doesn´t put any extra pressure on you).
Gustavo, thanks for asking.
I am in the middle of a rewrite of my novel. I turn my completed revision back into my pre-editor on April 15. She will edit it again. I will revise again. Then, onward to submittal.
I also have other characters pestering me to write their story, and I start that one in April.
I hope to have the first book someplace by the end of the year. If I do another round of submitting and get nothing but rejection, I will publish it myself. Of course, I will let a willing reader know either way.
Ive looked my name up before…I’m a mad scientist working in an area I can’t pronounce or spell! Ha
That’s AWESOME, Denise. Being mad is never bad.
Andra- pretty shrewd of you to try to throw us all off the truth with this blog post. But, seriously, HOW did you get access to the internet behind bars to craft this post?
Hahaha. Tricia, that’s a secret I’ll never tell.
Call me a wuss, but I’ve always been afraid to google myself in case I find something awful about myself out there. So I stay in my ignorant bliss!
At least it was a bloke so you’re not likely to get confused with him. 
But, people at random traffic stops ALWAYS believe what’s in the computer.
Here a familiar refrain can be: “I saw it on the telly, so it must be true.” Grrrr!
Oh dear. And I prefer to read and watch the BBC because it seems less sensational than here. Wouldn’t say that makes it more true.
I think ITV is more sensational than the BBC, but the BBC can be very biased at times.
The professional pitcher isn’t such a nice guy. Do not like. Hell, I have enough trouble self-sabotaging whatever little good name I might have left…
It does really suck to have one’s name attached to a person of bad repute.
Reputations don’t really concern me so much as what people actually do…