My Week 249: Who Is The Elusive Shane? Titus Gets Punchy

Who is Shane?

This question continues to plague me. A little over two years ago, I received a company cell phone, one of the perks of being a permanent employee at the secret agency. It’s just a simple iPhone–it doesn’t have a built-in Geiger counter or tear gas cartridges, nor does it change my voice to sound like Batman or provide me the gift of super-hearing. It DOES have Google Maps and a calculator, so that’s almost as good as an Industrial Satellite Laser, and you might have guessed that I watched a lot of James Bond movies as a kid. At any rate, I got this phone, and I also immediately started getting random text messages (these are actual screen shots from my phone so if you’re having trouble reading them, click on them to enlarge). The first was an invitation for a boat ride of some kind.

 I didn’t know what “SocaSweetness” might be, but the liberal use of numerals for letters, abbreviations, and the overenthusiastic exclamation marks were a surefire indication that it was going to be a very loud event, and most likely NOT for me. The next message was the first indication that someone named “Shane” was somehow connected to me, and that his friends were a jolly, if perhaps prone to “blazing”, group of people.

LMFAO

And for those of you who don’t know, “blaze”, according to Urbandictionary.com, means “smoke weed”. Shane henceforth was known as “Blazefordayz Shane”. I’ve written about Shane before—his girlfriend who excoriated me for not answering her numerous Facetime calls, his mother who scolded me for never texting her back (TEXT ME BACK SHANE!), and his many friends towards whom I’ve become quite motherly:

Don’t text and drive!

Shane has nice friends.

Of course, my favourite was the Warehouse Job episode, which I wrote about previously in My Week 226: All About The Bordens.

But the other day, I was at People’s Jewellers, a well-known jewellery store chain, and the store clerk asked for my phone number to check the status of my protection plan. I gave it to her and she looked perplexed. “Shane Brien?” she said. “From Brampton?” And I gasped audibly and replied, “BlazeforDayz Shane is REAL?!” She looked at me confused and I said, “Oh sorry—that must be the person who had the phone before me.” See, in my mind, Shane had become a mythical figure, a sort of pot-smoking, Soca dancing Bigfoot—it never occurred to me that he was an actual human person. And then I had an epiphany. I could use my keen skills of detection, and the wonderful world of social media, to finally identify Shane once and for all. So I engaged my “little grey cells” as Hercule Poirot would say, and headed straight to Facebook.

Do you know how many people on Facebook are named Shane Brien? Or Shane Brian? Or Shane Bryan? Or Shayne…you get the picture. There are a LOT of them. But I could easily narrow it down by excluding any of them who lived outside of Ontario (which was a shame, because there’s a lovely Shane Brian in New Brunswick and I wish him and his adorable girlfriend all the best in life). Anyway, I tried to narrow it down a little further by a process of elimination based on their profile pictures:

1) Shane Brien, standing in the middle of an icy highway in Northern Ontario. I don’t think MY Shane likes the cold. It would be too hard to Soca dance when your extremities are frozen.

2) Shane Brien, tiger-striped kitty cat. Does having a profile picture of a sweet floof detract from your semi-gangster image or is the cat just a decoy?

3) Shane Brien, no profile pic, but underneath it just says ‘Prison’. Now, MY Shane may flirt with the law, but marijuana is legal in Canada; besides, Shane’s mother would kill him if he did anything criminal. And so would I.

4) Shane O’Brien. That sounds Irish. I don’t think Shane is Irish. Also there’s an NHL player named Shane O’Brien and he is now officially my top pick for next year’s hockey pool. He will be my secret weapon, allowing me to defeat the even more mysterious and even more elusive Jeffrey, who won this year’s hockey pool while I came in a shameful 12th.

5) Shane Brien, Contractor, Advanced Warehouse Structures. Shane…warehouse job…I’d say it looks like the pieces are falling into place, except this Shane has 3 kids and I don’t remember his girlfriend saying anything about children. In fact, I believe her exact words were, and I quote, “You better not be with that Angela.”

And because the store clerk at People’s insisted on changing the name on the phone number to mine, I can never go back to the store and try to find out more information. Maybe I should have accepted the invite to Vegas. Shane and I would have had a blast.

Vegas Baby!

Titus Gets Punchy

Alarm goes off.

Me (*stretching*): ERGH. Time to get up.
Titus: NO.
Me: Oh my god, you just punched me in the eye!!
Titus: It was an accident–I was trying to high five you. Where are you going? Stay in bed.
Me: No! I have to see if my eye is OK!
Titus: You’re fine. Stop being a baby. Besides, eye patches are all the rage this season.
Me: I don’t want an eyepatch! OWW. If you scratched my cornea with your germy paw, I’ll be so mad.
Titus (whispers): I just wanted you to stay home with me. I’m sorry.
Me: Sigh. I love you, buddy.
Titus: You’ll look awesome with an eyepatch. Like an angry pirate.
Me: ARRRR.

53 thoughts on “My Week 249: Who Is The Elusive Shane? Titus Gets Punchy”

  2. Not to be obvious, or dumb, but don’t you work for a super-secret spy agency that can, when the mood strikes, track down anyone on the planet by the candy bar wrapper they left in a local bin? In fact, if I say the word “obelus” it would probably turn my monitor into a one-way camera for you Canadian sleuths to spy upon me, right?

    But never mind all that. I found your Shane Brien by expanding the search parameters and he’s actually a dentist living in Baton Rouge:

    https://www.facebook.com/Shane-M-Brien-DDS-1838292563064152/

    Tell me a fella who posts “teeth are always in style” by Dr Seuss doesn’t blaze for days. I dare ya.

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    • Using the secret agency’s resources for personal sleuthing is a violation of my oath to the Queen unfortunately. But I think you may have located Shane—that totally sounds like something he would say!

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  5. Haha! BlazeforDayz Shane is probs a middle aged dude with four kids and an office job, he’s a member of a club of pot belly dads that do crazy things like go to Vegas twice a year to “get away” and celebrate their birthday. I began to get texts from some dude named Mario wishing me happy Valentine’s Day, saying he’s missed me and hoped I was doing fine. Since Feb I’ve gotten crying texts in the middle of the night asking me to forgive him, and he wants to come home.
    I don’t respond, I want o see how far he’ll go with midnight confessions, lol.

    Liked by 4 people

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  7. While reading, I decided I was going to investigate your Shane, then I saw that you had already done it, and you didn’t make it sound creepy. (I was going to stalk Shane)… you gathered information. Thank you for the many laughs as usual 🙂

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  13. After giving this a lot of thought I’ve concluded that the Shane who previously owned your phone is none other than the mysterious cowboy of Jack Schaefer’s novel, and the film adaptation. He has, in his own modern way, ridden into your life to help you out, much as he helped the Starrett family. His ability to “blaze4dayz” actually refers to his skills at trail marking and fire building, essential on the Wyoming territory and in helping you navigate the perils of people having sex on rooftops in plain view and being punched in the eye by your dog.
    Someday Shane will ride out of your life just as mysteriously as he appeared. Perhaps he’ll go by horse, perhaps by boat, or maybe in a convertible headed for Las Vegas. He will leave you safer, though, and you’ll never have to worry about Jack Palance again.

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  15. I vote for “Prison” Shane Brien. I think he got snatched up by the police so fast that he wasn’t able to properly dispose of his cellphone and calling plan, so it just kind of floated through the ether and eventually came to you. I kind of wish I had someone else’s number, just for the entertainment factor.

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  19. I shouldn’t have, but I laughed at the image of you sporting a pirate patch. Did you know you can get clear patches now? Know how I know? Yep, my husband has to wear one to keep his eye protected. I was thinking how, if you were to need one (no, Titus, no!), I’d probably be the only person in the world right now who knew two people wearing eye patches in modern times!! Not funny/funny, I know.

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  21. Oooh – & here I just shared on facebook an article about how US employers can pretty much hack away at their employees. I often wonder if the folks who are employed to do the snooping are more often amused or bored lol

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  22. I have never been much of a television person (other than sports). Lately, I started watcing America’s Got Talent. That was after completing 38 seasons of Survivor.
    Never knew there was a show about blacksmiths.

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