The Post With The Most

Well, I was wide awake last night at 2:00 a.m. so I did what any other normal person would do. I "Googled" myself.

I started with my current last name. My Facebook page came up. Okay, harmless. It also turns out that I am a flutist in Missouri (I'm not. Some other, better Maggie McCallie is.). Pretty impressive. Also, interestingly, I was married to Alexander McCallie in Scotland in 1746. Cool! Then I searched under my maiden name. My Facebook page came up again as did several links to information from my time working in Student Affairs at MTSU (Go Blue Raiders!).

One entry that came up under my maiden name was something that I had hoped over time would be eternally lost in the myriad of sites out there in Webland. Something that has plagued me in the 11 years that have passed since it occurred. Something that to this day causes me a great deal of personal shame and regret. It requires explaining so here goes:

I was living in Knoxville in graduate school (Go Vols!) at the time and I had my first laptop in order to type and print papers and projects. I was just becoming aware of this new phenomenon called "the internet". (It wasn't exactly new at the time; it was simply something I had resisted becoming acquainted with because I thought it was just a trend.) A neighbor I had a crush on that never amounted to a darn thing helped me create a username and password in AOL. He told me I would need a username that was unique to me but that also didn't have too much personal information in it. He worked in a security business so he tried to steer me away from having my first and last name present in my email address. So, I did what any other normal person would do. I created a username that paid homage to my dog. Clearly I didn't have a lot going on in my life since that's the best I could come up with.

At any rate, my username was the catchy, maggiejrt@aol.com - the "JRT" stood for Jack Russell Terrier. As I began to navigate my way through this "internet", I did what any other normal person would do. I looked up dirty stuff. At the time, I kept hearing about all of these porn sites and I just couldn't imagine that there were pictures of that kind of thing on display for people to see. Once I was able to see that, in fact, there were millions upon millions of sex sites out there in cyberspace, I began searching for things I was actually interested in. I went to my undergraduate university's website (War Eagle!). I looked up celebrities I liked as well as lyrics to songs I couldn't figure out on my own. Then I did what any other normal person would do. I visited Jack Russell Terrier sites. (I think I may be starting to understand why nothing ever happened with my cute neighbor.)

Yes, on nights and not surprisingly weekends, I had puh-lenty of time to search several pictures of all kinds of Jack Russells. Short ones. Tall ones. Some with floppy ears. Some with pointy ears that stood straight up. Some with smooth coats. Some with rough coats. Some with smooth coats AND floppy ears, etc...

So apparently (well, not "apparently" - it is time-stamped for all the world to see) one Thursday evening in June 1998, I was just chillin' at my pad, kickin' it on a JRT site when I did what any other normal person would do. I decided to "Sign the Guestbook". Why I felt compelled to do this, I will never know. What I do know is that in a state of complete loss of my mental faculties, I wrote the following:

Your website is great! My JRT, Dudley, and I enjoy looking at all of the cute photos of other great JRTs.

And of course, in order to make it completely discernable that is was in fact Maggie Prugh of Birmingham, Alabama (even though I was in Knoxville at the time) that wrote this, I signed my name to it.

I am picturing this lonely, single girl with her dog in her lap spending hours upon hours crying and scouring the internet for the best pictures of dogs while never leaving the comfort of her pajamas. In reality that wasn't exactly the case. I was single, yes. I did have a dog. And I was going to dog-related websites. All of that is true. But I wasn't as much of a loser as the post would suggest. But of course, there was no guestbook to sign at an "I Promise I Am Not a Total Loser.com" site.

So what image do you think this conjures up for previous boyfriends? Certainly not one of "the one that got away". No, this post screams of "Thank God I dumped her"!!! What would this post leave enemies from high school and sorority days to assume? "She is the failure I always knew she would be". And you know they've Googled me. I've Googled them, so I know they've Googled me. That's what losers do.

So, every once in a while I will search for my name in hopes that this site has been shut down or removed so I can go on and live a peaceful - and very full, despite what the post would suggest - life. And every time I am disappointed to see not only the link, but my actual post come up in the results of my search. You may be asking yourself how full my life could be given that I continue to Google myself and have searched for former boyfriends. I don't think I'll address that question. Let's just move on.

So how did I combat this and ensure that my privacy is protected and that I don't post anything stupid out there in cyberspace again? I did what any other normal person would do. I started a blog.