Ghosted

Newsletter 2026-07-13

I’m not used to being ghosted. My wife Lola and I met in the age before cell phones, back when people communicated mostly by the Pony Express. Technically, I had a cell phone in college, but it was an ancient one that my mom gave me to keep in my car in case of emergencies that I never once turned on or even charged. In that condition, I’m not sure what emergency it was supposed to help me with. I suppose, if I were attacked by a wild animal, I could throw the phone at it. All good mobile devices should be heavy enough to knock out a charging bear. Lola and I were married with kids before we had our first phones with keyboards and a plan that included texting. By then, it was a little late for us to ghost each other. I thought it was also too late for the rest of the world, since I mainly communicated with people who were obliged to respond to me by virtue of blood or marriage. In that regard, I was mistaken. I recently had two non-relational contacts disappear without a trace. One was the guy who was supposed to detail my minivan, and the other one was the person who I hoped would take my foster pig. Those two action items were the topic of an entire newsletter. To the surprise of no one, both efforts amounted to nothing. Here’s how the key players in my most recent plans disappeared from the face of the earth. I’m a dangerous person to know. Hold onto something solid lest, by virtue of sending you this, I accidentally make you vanish, too.

I’m still confused by the behavior of the car detailer. I was trying to give him money. Historically, that’s the one time strangers want to interact with me. My van currently has levels of filth that defy human comprehension. The most accurate word to describe it would be a high-pitched scream. My vehicle contains the expected debris from transporting kids back and forth for years, plus all the sand that we took back from the Indiana Dunes earlier this summer. The grains stuck to the bottom of our feet and beach gear, causing a decade’s worth of erosion in a single afternoon. If the cities along Lake Michigan suddenly disappear beneath the waves, that’s my bad. Next time, I’ll shake off my sandals better. When I did a standard Google search to find a vehicle detailer, I mostly found national services that charged a high price. I soon learned that those services contracted out to local people and simply took a cut for being the middleman. I got on Facebook to see if I could find those local people on my own. To my delight, I stumbled across one such business supposedly located in my suburb. The business had a vague Facebook page without much identifiable information. What a perfect place to hand over my credit card.

Through Facebook Messenger, the detailer and I quickly agreed to terms and a date. The guy would come out to my house while I was at work. We have three vehicles, and my sixteen-year-old didn’t yet have her driver’s license at the time. I planned to take her vehicle to work while my van sat at home for service. Betsy could give the detailer the key when he showed up. Then it occurred to me how sketchy that was. The Facebook page was listed under a generic sounding business title like “Indiana Car Detailers” or something similar. It might as well have called itself “DefinitelyNotaScam.com.” The page didn’t list the owner’s name. Worse, the address was a random house in a residential neighborhood. Facebook doesn’t ask you to verify anything. Ask me how I know. It occurred to me that, if I had my daughter hand my van keys to a random person who showed up at the door, and that person disappeared with my vehicle, I would sound like the dumbest person in the world when I called the police. Insurance doesn’t cover that level of stupidity. In a moment of panic, I asked the car detailer if he could send me a picture of his driver’s license so I knew who would be at my house with my vehicle. He declined. I had ruined everything. It’s my signature move.

From the detailer’s perspective, I could have been the criminal in this scenario, looking to steal his personally identifiable information. It’s one thing to turn over your driver’s license at a car dealership before a test drive, but another to reveal all that information to a random person on the internet. The guy behind the account said he wasn’t comfortable disclosing that information for an employee. It wouldn’t even be the man I was talking to who would be showing up at my door. He said it might be better if we scheduled the time when I would be home so I would be more comfortable with the transaction. He hadn’t cut communication. Perhaps I was worried about nothing. I switched again from paranoia to total trust. I told him he could go to my house without me there if he could simply tell me the name of who would be at my door. I never heard from the car detailer again. Serves me right. Next time, I’ll just hand over my keys to whoever shows up without asking any questions. If they do steal my van, at least they’ll take all that extra sand with them.

That incident wouldn’t have been as noteworthy if it weren’t the second conversation in the same week that ended in ominous silence. We’re trying to find a forever home for our foster pig, Onyx. I rescued him from an overgrown backyard after a house fire. Days after the fire, the daughter of his original owner reached out on Facebook, asking the community for help. My friend Delilah alerted me to the emergency. I checked with Lola. She generously allowed me to rescue him under the ironclad condition that he not live here permanently. He could stay at our house for a few months at most. That was two years ago. In the intervening twenty-four months, the original owner has gone through two contractors and had her insurance money frozen. I doubt the house will ever be rebuilt. I told Onyx’s owner that she had until the end of May to find another foster situation for Onyx. If she couldn’t, we’d find a place to permanently rehome him ourselves. That’s where we’re at now. My ultimatum lost much of its force when I realized that, even after claiming the authority to give away the pig, there was still no one who wanted him. I’ve been scouring the internet ever since, trying to find a willing taker for the low, low price of free. I still have him priced too high. After my most recent attempt, I’m not sure if I could get rid of him if I paid someone to take him away.

Who wouldn’t want to adopt this handsome guy?

I found one promising prospect on Facebook who backed out when she found out that Onyx didn’t get along well with other pigs. Then a second person entered the fray. She didn’t have any other pigs and said her passion was training difficult animals. I couldn’t think of a better description for Onyx. She wanted a problem. He was one. I enthusiastically gave her details about Onyx. She responded, if not with as much energy and frequency as me. Gradually, our communication trailed off. Then I texted her three times in a row days apart without response. She never said she didn’t want him. She just stopped communicating all together. Even I can take a hint. That’s a lie. I need your rejection to be printed on a billboard. I’m still secretly hoping that person has been out of cell phone range for the last two weeks and might suddenly message as soon as she gets out of whatever cave she’s been exploring. I’ll keep my phone close just in case.

That wasn’t the first ghosting I’d received in relation to the pig. Indiana actually has a dedicated swine rescue located in central Indiana. I previously sent them a Facebook message, email, and voicemail. I didn’t hear back from them on any channel. Delilah, who fosters kittens, suggested that I show up in person. She knows what she’s talking about. She’s successfully gotten more than fifty young cats to their forever homes. Meanwhile, I’m still stuck on the first pig I’ve ever tried to give away. It was an unfortunate way to discover yet one more thing I’m bad at. Saturday, I showed up at the pig rescue right when they opened. I’m not known for my in-person charisma, but I thought that being there might make me too inconvenient to be ignored. I’m very good at getting in the way. The person behind the counter was a volunteer who didn’t have the authority to onboard pigs. She took down my information, and I went away. Props to her for getting rid of me quickly. Only one of us was good at our mission that day.

I hadn’t even made it a few miles down the road before I received a call from a number I didn’t recognize. It was the intake coordinator for the pig rescue. I had made quite an impression during my brief encounter with the volunteer. I’m better than I thought at conveying absolute desperation. I gave the intake coordinator my spiel. I was met with a brick wall of resistance. The rescue simply wasn’t taking in more pigs. They’ve saved all of them that they can handle. When I told her he couldn’t stay with me because he didn’t get along with my pigs and they’re still fighting after two years, she said that was par for the course. Some pigs just hate each other forever. It’s not a bug, but a feature. The coordinator was nice, but she wasn’t impressed with my plight. She already has six pigs, which isn’t a number anyone takes on willingly. After a half a dozen calls where she personally adopted pigs that the rescue didn’t have room for, she had to draw a hard line. I was on the wrong side of it. Props to her for standing up for herself eventually. Better late than never. Maybe I’ll get there someday.

Before the end of the call, she gave me the name of another animal rescue I’d never heard of. She assured me that they were taking on new animals. Immediately after I hung up with the intake coordinator for the pig place, I called the mystery animal rescue. I left a message from my van. We’ll see if they call back. This isn’t the first time I’ve ended a newsletter on a cliffhanger of optimism, and I doubt it will be the last. Here’s hoping this won’t lead to yet another ghosting situation for me to write about. If I have to tell Lola that I failed yet again, I’ll be the one who will be a ghost.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Catch you next time.

James