Stalker Awareness Month: A View From the Bushes
I hope this January is just the beginning of a long-overdue dawn of recognition and brotherhood. I foresee a glowing future, where Stalkers will never again be called invalid, or asked to spell our names.
I consulted a panel of experts and decided that yesterday, January 15, 2009 ranks in my all-time top ten list of days, right up there with game five of the 2008 World Series and the day I got to do the official play-by-play announcing for my high school’s championship volleyball game (a sport I know and care to know nothing about). How did yesterday attain this auspicious status?
Yesterday, my friends, I heard that January is National Stalker Awareness Month. I looked it up on Google today and it’s true: January is officially Stalker Awareness Month. Well, I am honored and grateful. I’ve done my best to be a good Stalker for over two decades now, and I’m glad the government has finally taken steps to recognize me, my brothers, and my extended Stalker family.
We endure terrible jokes from every stranger we meet, we Stalkers. From about second grade, when our vocabulary extends to include such words, we deal with uninspired puns, raised eyebrows, and “and how do you spell that?” by the overflowing bucketload. While the Awareness Month isn’t quite the guaranteed pension I occasionally suggest the federal government give Stalkers, I feel it is a step in the right direction. We are, after all, a discriminated-against minority. For instance, Facebook, the online friendship-based procrastination tool, will not allow my name, calling it “Invalid.” Thus my online tag is the truncated and emasculating “Jedidiah S.”
I hope this January is just the beginning of a long-overdue dawn of recognition and brotherhood. I foresee a glowing future, where Stalkers will never again be called invalid, or asked to spell our names.
On a related note, it appears that the first official Stalker Awareness Month occurred in 2003. As approximately five-and-a-half months have passed during which I was nationally recognized without my own understanding, I hereby petition that December be henceforth National Stalker Awareness Month Awareness Month.
Jed Stalker a columnist for the Voice. He is a senior English major.
