Hello, I'm Sorry

So I’m sitting in my parents’ living room on Friday, feeling the kind of vague unease that creeps up on me when I can't remember what hot stocks I should buy or where to get discount V1@gr@and I think to myself, “I should check my email.” My parents have DSL but no wireless, so I have to go unplug my mom’s computer and plug mine in to get on AGISH (Al Gore's Information Superhighway) -- which is asking a bit much of a man on holiday. While I’m waiting for my email to download, I decide to check the traffic on MattressPolice.com to see how many readers I’ve lost after not posting for several days. Here’s the handy dandy graph offered by Statcounter.com:



As you can see, my absence has been a big hit. People just can’t get enough of me not being around.

I’ve tried a lot of traffic-building stunts, but few of them have been the immediate and unqualified success that leaving has been. By my reckoning, my most successful posts/stunts are:

1. My Mixed Fruits and Metaphors post.
2. The Mattress Police caption contests.
3. Not posting anything.
4. My Harry Potter post.
5. The Lamest Contest Ever.

I’m not sure what it is about my not being around that strikes such a chord with people. Is it the sort of anxious excitement and hope that accompanies an event like cancer going into remission or the Berlin Wall coming down? Is it the kind of exhausted relief that one experiences with the series finale of Friends or Paris Hilton going to jail? Is it the kind of guilty curiosity that comes with the death of a celebrity that one had thought died in 1987?

As popular as my disappearance has proven to be, however, I’ve decided to return before the novelty wears off. There’s nothing worse than dragging out a good thing. At first it would be like:

Unique Visitor 1: Hey, did you hear about that blogger who stopped posting?
Unique Visitor 2: No! For how long?
UV1: Going on five days now.
UV2: Wow. I need to check that out. What’s the internet address thingy?

But after a while it will be like:

UV1: Hey, remember that guy that I told you about who stopped posting?
UV2: Oh, yeah! That was hilarious. What’s he up to now?
UV1: That’s the thing, he’s still not posting.
UV2: What? Geez, get some new material already. What a waste of an internet address thingy.

I thought about returning Gandalf-style, with a white robe and the air of superiority that comes with facing down a balrog, but then if my town was ever terrorized by a balrog, everybody would expect me to take care of it, and I don’t need that kind of pressure. Then I considered coming back with a different name, like “The Hoff.” The great thing about giving yourself a nickname like that is that it sounds really cool, but it’s so lame to give yourself your own nickname that people will end up calling you it as sort of a joke, and then keep calling you it even after they’ve forgotten they were originally making fun of you. But I think you have to be a world class dork to pull off something like that.

So here I am, returning with a whimper rather than a bang. I wish I could come up with something more exciting, but I think I’ve given up trying to figure out what stunts are going to generate a lot of traffic. After all, if a post bombs, I can always disappear.

(Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I'll be back on Friday with a new caption contest pic. And next week I'll regale you with stories about the irrepressible Mr. Wilson, the Scariest Motel Ever, and other unverifiable tales of my vacation. Oh, and tomorrow I'll do my best to catch up on the blog reviews at humor-blogs.com. See you back here on Friday!)