655: The Not-So-Great Unknown
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So let's begin today with this story about two people. These are two people with two very different perspectives on the world. And the one thing these two people have in common, the only thing that connects them is a can of olives that one of them sends to the other. Diane Wu, one of the producers of our show, she looked into this. Hey, Diane. Hello, Ira. So? So the first person in the story is named Caroline. She was a year out of college when this package arrived to her parents' house, a place she hadn't lived for many years. Her mom texted her. What do you want me to do with this box from walmart.com? Which is weird because Caroline hadn't ordered anything from Walmart, like ever. So she just texted her mom back to say, "Well, just open it up and see what's inside." And then she texts me that it's a can of black olives. It's just like this can of black olives and an empty box. No note, no nothing. So Caroline starts texting her friends and asks them, "Did you send me these olives?" "Is there like an olive inside joke that we have that I forgot about?" And people are like, "I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't send you any olives." One of her friends wrote, "Oh, the classic oliving." So Caroline then goes to urbandictionary.com and types in "oliving." Nothing comes up. So her friend was kidding. Yeah. Caroline thinks, "Okay, maybe Walmart just made a mistake. This was a random computer glitch." Or maybe her friends were lying and one of them did send it. So she calls Walmart, there was no receipt, but the order number was on the box. And? And they told her it was not a random computer glitch. There was a person who ordered it and sent it to her, like a real person. And he's the other person in the story. And they gave me the name. They said it was a guy named Christopher Fouts. And I don't know anyone by that name. She thinks, "Why would a total stranger send me a can of olives?" So she Googles Christopher Fouts. For him on Facebook. But she can't figure out who he is. Who do you think Christopher Fouts is? How do you imagine him? I imagine that maybe he has a very specific thing that I'm imagining. Go for it. Okay. So I imagine that, I don't know, he has a day-to-day office job where he comes in to the cubicle every day and grinds away. So on the side, he pulls these pranks and whatnot.
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