{"id":119,"date":"2012-08-06T06:42:25","date_gmt":"2012-08-06T06:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.certainly-strange.com\/?p=119"},"modified":"2013-03-05T22:11:18","modified_gmt":"2013-03-05T22:11:18","slug":"the-legendary-adventures-of-rian-d-adams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.certainly-strange.com\/?p=119","title":{"rendered":"The Legendary Adventures of Rian D. Adams"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rian was proficient with many weapons and languages<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It is time the world knew of the many perilous adventures of Rian D. Adams!\u00a0 Tales of her bravery abound, the only problem is – they are all made up based on speculation.\u00a0 She may be even mightier than her legends suggest!\u00a0 Or, she could be less-so.\u00a0 But let’s not focus on that, for the purposes of my post, she is incredibly awesome and thus her name shall live on.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A few years back, I changed my phone number when I moved up here from Santa Cruz.\u00a0 As always, I got the handful of calls and texts for the previous owner of this number – a one Rian D. Adams – and thought nothing of it.\u00a0 This always happens, right?\u00a0 Except, that these calls persisted (no matter how I tried to discourage her callers by convincing them that I am not her), and slowly – a story emerged.<\/p>\n

The first persistent caller sounded like a young woman with a very California accent.\u00a0 She always sounded very upset when I picked up. “Where are you?” she would demand to know.\u00a0 “Who is this?” and she would hang up.\u00a0 At this point, my friends and I thought that the previous owner of the phone was a male named Ryan, for that is how the banks pronounced her name.\u00a0 We decided this angry woman was the angry ex girlfriend of Ryan, and since she kept calling me and getting upset (because a woman was answering the phone and saying there was no Ryan?) it made sense to all of us why he would change his number – to escape her.\u00a0 This was the first narrative.\u00a0 Then came the next, far darker persistent caller.<\/p>\n

He began to call about a year after I owned my current number.\u00a0 Let’s call him Insane Texan, for that is what my friends and I call him.\u00a0 He sounded middle-aged and had a Texas accent.\u00a0 He would call me at about 2 in the morning to leave vaguely threatening voice mails intended for Rian.\u00a0 They were rambling and involved a lot of swearing.\u00a0 Sometimes I would answer when he called, thinking that surely he would realize his mistake when a woman answered the phone, for I am no Ryan.\u00a0 But whenever I would answer the phone, he would continue swearing at me and rambling and calling me a coward, calling me Rian.\u00a0 He always sounded very drunk or on drugs or something, but still – what amount of drugs could make him think that I was a Ryan?\u00a0 Surely my voice isn’t that deep!<\/p>\n

No amount of pleading or ignoring or reasoning could make Insane Texan stop calling me.\u00a0 At the same time, the bank calls from Wells Fargo were also increasing.\u00a0 I picked up and told Wells Fargo,<\/p>\n

“I am not a Wells Fargo customer, I have never been a Wells Fargo customer, I never will be a Wells Fargo customer, I have never set foot inside a Wells Fargo, and I have never done business with a Wells Fargo!”<\/p>\n

The banker said, “Well can I speak to Rian D. Adams, please?”<\/p>\n

“I don’t know who he is, he was the previous owner of this phone, and I am still getting calls for him!\u00a0 Stop calling me!”<\/p>\n

“Well I am sorry, but this number is claimed as being the client’s current number, and so long as they are claiming this to be their number on their account we cannot stop the calls.”<\/p>\n

“What? That’s harassment!\u00a0 Do you need me to draft a letter from my lawyer?”<\/p>\n

And that stopped the calls from Wells Fargo.\u00a0 But now the narrative had changed!\u00a0 Obviously, Ryan was escaping Insane Texan.\u00a0 Or surely the banks!\u00a0 With all those overdraft calls and their well-established policy of harassment!\u00a0 Ex\/Girlfriend must just have been collateral damage in trying to escape these psychos.\u00a0 But escaping what?<\/p>\n

Insane Texan liked to call Rian a “coward,” a “traitor,” and a “snitch.”\u00a0 One time he left a very simple voice mail, “Hey traitor, guess where I am!” and left a chuckle.\u00a0 Gee I don’t know Insane Texan, where are you?\u00a0 Are you at Rian’s house? Or perhaps you are at the Wax Museum? Why the heck would I know?\u00a0 This helped build our narrative around the mythic figure.<\/p>\n

Ryan was a spy!\u00a0 Or an undercover cop!\u00a0 Or a whistleblower!\u00a0 Insane Texan was once Rian’s partner in business or criminal activity, but then Rian saved the day and turned him in!\u00a0 Of course he went to prison, for he is Insane Texan and deserving of this.\u00a0 This also explains why it took him a year to start calling me.\u00a0 But by then, Rian had looonnng been in Witness Protection, much to the dismay of Girlfriend and Wells Fargo.\u00a0 And Insane Texan, I guess, but he was always so out of it that I doubt he ever noticed that Rian was missing.<\/p>\n

As if to confirm these suspicions, once the Insane Texan calls reached their peak, they stopped as suddenly as they had started.\u00a0 For about three months.\u00a0 Then out of the blue they started up all over again and he was as angry as ever.\u00a0 So, obviously he had been thrown in jail.\u00a0 Again.\u00a0 Either for drugs, or for asking too many questions about Rian, who was a brave FBI agent who only wanted to uncover the truth and make Americans safe.\u00a0 Insane Texan wanted none of that.\u00a0 He wanted Americans to be in peril, actually.<\/p>\n

I had managed to get Wells Fargo and Girlfriend to stop calling me, and those were the most important to get rid of to be honest.\u00a0 Wells Fargo was just obnoxious and Girlfriend wasn’t interesting or entertaining.\u00a0 I could not stop Insane Texan, and I’ll admit he was annoying, but boy was he ever entertaining as well.\u00a0 Then came a new, heartbreaking caller.\u00a0 The one who informed me that “Ryan” was actually Rian and that he was actually a she.<\/p>\n

First he left me a voicemail.\u00a0 He sounded like a young man in his 20’s or 30’s, also with a California accent.\u00a0 He sounded surprised to hear my voice mail greeting, introducing myself as the owner of the number.\u00a0 But he continued, “Hello, I guess maybe Rian isn’t there, but if you’re down the hall from her or something could you please ask her to call me? If you could just tell her that I’m trying to call her.”\u00a0 He sounded on the verge of tears, and was trying to keep himself collected.\u00a0 I was moved, but what could I do?<\/p>\n

He called me only one more time.\u00a0 I answered.<\/p>\n

He said, “Could I speak to Rian?”<\/p>\n

“I don’t know a Rian, I’m sorry.”<\/p>\n

“Well, if you see her, or if she’s just down the hall from you, or if she comes back, could you just tell her… tell her that I miss her.”<\/p>\n

“Look I would really like to help you, but I honestly don’t know her, I’m not hiding her from you or anything.”<\/p>\n

“Okay.”<\/p>\n

End of call.<\/p>\n

Well, so Rian was a female FBI agent gunslinger whistleblower spy!\u00a0 Let’s forget the fact that it sounded like she was living in a college dormitory,\u00a0 that was obviously just part of her cover.\u00a0 The boy that called, could he have been a lover? A brother? A friend?\u00a0 And for some reason, this gender revelation made Insane Texan sound all the more sinister.\u00a0 How could he be constantly threatening a young woman like that? It seemed less sick when I thought he was calling out some dude to fight him.<\/p>\n

One day, Insane Texan called me when he wasn’t blazed out of his mind, and finally recognized that my voice mail greeting introduces myself as “Christine,” and not “Rian.”\u00a0 He was very confused, swore some, and said, “I guess maybe I got the wrong number here…” and I never heard from him again.\u00a0 I actually get no more Rian calls at all anymore, and I kind of miss them.\u00a0 They were a window into adventure and great deeds a part of something bigger than you or me.<\/p>\n

Rian D. Adams, wherever you are, I hope you are continuing to kick ass and stopping all the alien invasions, just like you did in the good-old days.\u00a0 And maybe try calling your family and\/or lover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is time the world knew of the many perilous adventures of Rian D. Adams!\u00a0 Tales of her bravery abound, the only problem is – they are all made up based on speculation.\u00a0 She may be even mightier than her legends suggest!\u00a0 Or, she could be less-so.\u00a0 But let’s not focus on that, for the … Continue reading “The Legendary Adventures of Rian D. Adams”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.certainly-strange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.certainly-strange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.certainly-strange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.certainly-strange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.certainly-strange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.certainly-strange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252,"href":"http:\/\/www.certainly-strange.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions\/252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.certainly-strange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.certainly-strange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.certainly-strange.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}