Diary of a Baltic Exile

  • 2004-02-05
The other night I was relaxing at home, when a strange thing happened. There I was, drinking a cup of coffee and pondering over why pubic hairs are so curly, when I suddenly got an SMS on my cell phone.

"YOU WILL DYE," the message read. Oh God, I groaned. What stupidity was this now? I was in no mood for death threats, so I immediately wrote back: "F**K OFF AND DYE YOURSELF W****R." Hardly, the most eloquent of ripostes, I know, but I saw little reason for niceties.
About 17 minutes passed, when another SMS came through. My nemesis had responded again, but entirely in Latvian. It was a long message and I didn't understand a thing. It basically read "BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH."
It was a bit unsettling to think there was someone out there who wanted me dead. Me? Who had I ever harmed? Could I expect someone to come bursting into my apartment while I slept and stick a hatchet in my head?
I tried to think who in Riga might harbor such enmity toward me, but couldn't think of anyone, except perhaps a certain barmaid, who I'd once accidentally drenched in my vomit when she leaned over the bar to see if I was still alive.
But maybe I was mistaken. Perhaps DYE really meant DYE, and someone thought I was an Anglo-phonic dry cleaner with a debt to pay. But, then again, maybe not.
So someone wanted me dead. Well, I wasn't going to get upset about it. I'd made a New Year's resolution not to get upset about things any more, and that went for anonymous death threats as well. So I wrote my nemesis back: "I LOVE YOU." I don't know why, but I felt in that moment like I really did. In 42 minutes I got a reply, just as I was getting ready for bed. "I LOVE YOU TOO BUT YOU YET WILL DYE."
It was all a bit confusing, but it also made sense in a strange sort of way. Anyway, I was more concerned with the reason why pubic hairs are so curly. I had an inkling that it had something to do with the number of disulfide bonds between hair proteins found in the hair shaft, with more links meaning more kinks. But, who knows, maybe it's just due to the lack of sunlight down there.
Anyway, I'm still alive. If my nemesis is anything like me, I probably don't have that much to worry about. Knowing me, I mean knowing him, when we do finally meet, he'll probably be so happy to see a familiar face that he'll forget he ever wanted to kill me and ask me what I want to drink. And that, happily, will be that.