I’m a She-Dragon Who Eats Cheats for Breakfast

That’s right, I don’t mean Cheerios!

Ooh la la!

First thing I do in the morning (after thanking the Universe for my restful sleep and asking Its blessing for the day ahead) is fluff up my pillow, reach for my laptop and lean back to check my email. This is my “me time.”

Great! Three new followers on Medium: One serious writer lady who reminds me too much of myself, one racy storyteller whom I followed yesterday, and one cool young guy with dreadlocks contained by a knitted headband.

Ooh la la! What have we here?

He looks like he’s heading for a hike in the mountains, backpack casually slung across his shoulder. I open his profile. Here’s how he describes himself, and what I think about it:

“Working in Voter Outreach Politics.” Yeah, dude! Super cool!

“Poli Sci/International Business major. Aspiring Diplomat. International trade, politics.” Fascinating. My daughter is in a similar field. Can’t wait to read about it…

“That’s whats (sic) up.” Hmm.

So you can tell that I am favorably disposed. So favorably that I (notorious grammar nazi) don’t even comment to myself on the missing apostrophe. And I totally overlook another bit of info, about which we shall hear more later.

Dude, are you serious?

I scroll through his posts.

Strangely enough, he’s not writing about elections and politics, or about diplomacy and international trade.

One header is a quote by Immanuel Kant, “From such crooked wood as that which man is made of, nothing straight can be fashioned.”

The next one poses the question, “Lying, is it serious?” Not quite the kind of stuff I want to contemplate before even brushing my teeth. I bet his minor is Ethics.

The third title catches my eye: “Sex, god and the city.” Sounds racy, don’t it?

The article starts with the question: “Can evil be defined objectively?” What the heck? Here I thought that in the 21st century sex was no longer evil? Did I wake up in a parallel universe ??? (Sorry, Universe!)

And so it goes on, complete with quotes from the Old Testament, in a dry, rambling prose style, totally unbecoming for the fun-loving, young mountaineer smiling down from the profile pic.

BORING!

Okay. Let’s select another piece, give Alec a chance to redeem himself.

Here’s something about dances and contemporary culture. But hark! It’s about “how disgusting and vulgar are twerking and Gangnam Style!” Gangnam Style? Who even remembers that stuff in 2020?

I spy, with my little dragon eye

This simply cannot be! This was clearly written by a centenarian (Alecia?) who has forgotten the Roaring Twenties of the last century. When she was young, you know, and let it all hang out. She must have used her great-grandson’s picture for her profile.

In disbelief I scroll through the posts, all written within the span of about a week. Prolific writer, I have to hand it to the chap. But all of it bone dry and boring, “deep,” and moralizing.

Somehow I end up back with the first one. There, a few lines up from Leviticus 18–22, my dragon eye spies a funny word: hexagonal. “…taking into account the hexagonal news reports…”

Sacré bleu! It’s ONE OF THOSE! Why didn’t I realize this earlier?

Gotcha!

Now it becomes clear why our young amateur philosopher, a recent arrival with about 250 followers, is following 1.8 K others. How did I not notice? Hint: If you follow absolutely everyone on Medium, you can rest assured that about 10 per cent will automatically follow you back. And a few others will follow you, no questions asked, as long as your profile picture is enticing enough.

Our toothsome trekker is A FAKE! But I am still impressed, because his machine translations, wherever he found them, are much better than Google Translate. Still, this one little word, hexagonal, gave the game away.

For a dragon like me, a cheat like Mr. Pete is nothing but an appetizer.

L’Hexagone, the hexagon, is how the French often refer to France, after (roughly) the shape of their country. And so “hexagonal news reports” should have been “French news reports.” And so this article, and most likely the others, too, were translated from French, but not by a human translator. And if the author sounds like a prissy old lady, it’s because she is none other than philosophy professor Laurence Hansen-Løve, aged 71 (who has her own Wikipedia page, but only in French).

From there it took me about 10 minutes to find the originals, all nicely in a row in the online version of the magazine “Philosophie,” (2013-2015 or so). Followed by another 5 minutes to email the proof to our trusty help desk, “[email protected]”

And just in time, as I was getting hungry, and ready for a real breakfast! Because for a dragon like me, a cheat like Mr. Pete is nothing but an appetizer.

And this is what his profile looks like today:

YAY!!! (Discreet little dragon burp)!

Dear reader,

The above story is my response to Desiree Driesenaar’s challenge to write a humor story for our favorite publication, Illumination.

Whether you consider yourself to be funny or not, if you see your name in the list below and you have not written one yet, you are hereby invited. Consider yourself challenged!

If you have already participated, you may rest on your laurels, undisturbed.

Charles Roast Sean Kernan Dr Mehmet Yildiz Rasheed Hooda Amy Marley Dennett Gurpreet Dhariwal Tony Young, Jr. Charlotte Zobeir Ali Roz Warren Kay Bolden Mike Maher Tree Langdon ♾️ Blessing Akpan Nazneen Rahman Holly Jahangiri