I’ve always thought of myself as a good judge of character.  I also thoroughly enjoy being right.

When I was a teenager I worked at a resort condo development near my hometown.  Growing up in northwestern Connecticut, I took the lakes and trees for granted, but apparently rich New Yorkers were willing to spend top dollar on shitty little bungalows in Torrington (T-town), CT.  I worked in the recreational lodges there.  We rented out canoes and there were swimming pools.  Working there was a lot of fun, but the residents were often disrespectful to the employees.  They thought of us as bumpkins.  To be fair, we were bumpkins, but that isn’t a good reason to disresect someone, especially a teenager who hasn’t had a chance to go out into the world yet.  Anyway, there were lots of moms with lots of kids, and they would all come to the lodges to swim, eat, socialize, and shit on the employees.  If you’ve spent any time with kids between the ages of 3 and 9, you know that they are little bastards.  Well, these kids were no exception.  They may have been worse after observing and adopting their parents’ sense of entitlement.  I dealt with this by trying to do as little as possible while there, and talking with the residents and their children as infrequently as possible. 

The queen of the social scene at this place was a resident who ran the snack shop in one of the lodges. She was there everyday running her snack shop, and as far as she was concerned, that was the 2^nd most important thing in the world.  The most important thing, and the only thing that could possibly trump the snackbar was her son “Damien.”  I’ve changed his name.  Have you ever seen the movie The Omen?  Well, it’s not a coincidence that I chose the name Damien as his alias.  This kid had a glint of evil, or at least malice in his eyes.  He was a bright kid for his age, and he was well on his way to becoming a master manipulator.  He was mean to the other kids, and I suspect that he used to kill small animals.  I’m not trying to be funny, I truly found this kid disturbing.  Not only were his interactions with the other children anti-social, but he wasn’t much better with his mother.  He lied, hit, stole, you name it.  I know that lots of kids do stuff like this, but sometimes you get a feeling about someone.  I got a feeling about Damien, and I was not alone.  When the employees sat around gossiping about the residents we all agreed that young Damien was the most obnoxious and disturbed little fucker we had ever encountered.  In fact, I asserted that he would grow up to be a date rapist. 

So many years have passed, and for some reason I thought of my old job the other day, and I started googling people I worked with there.  Then I remembered Damien.  When I googled him I found very odd results.  I found six pages of self-promotional blogs and websites, all of them singing his praises and listing his accomplishments.  It was eerie.  Every one of the blogs said the same thing in slightly different words, and there were only one or two entries in each of them.  It wasn’t right.  I immediately thought that it was a cover up of something.  After browsing through six pages, I got to the meat. 

This is from dailynewstribune.com:
"Damien brought merchandise into a fitting room, and broke an ink-filled security tag when he tried to remove it, according to a police report.  ‘(The blue ink) covered his hands and one of the sweaters,’ an officer wrote in the report. ‘Damien ... cleaned his hands with the already damaged sweater and then concealed two shirts in the back of his pants and then exited the fitting room.’  He then received cash back for a sweater he returned, though the sweater did not have the correct price tag on it, according to the report."

Then I found this on the Boston Herald website:
"Bar security told cops the suspect had been swearing at wait staff and threw a glass after being asked to leave Wednesday night, police reported. Cops said the suspect also spat blood at an officer as he was placed in a patrol wagon outside the Commonwealth Avenue bar. Damien was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery on a police officer and disorderly conduct."

Nice.  Rich kids acting out even after they aren’t kids anymore is classic.  It looks to me like he or his parents shelled out a ton of money so someone would bury his police record so he would be able to use his fancy BU business degree to get a high paying job somewhere.  That makes me laugh.  If I was smart enough to realize that all of the bullshit blogs about Damien were covering something up, then any company who doesn’t want to hire a sociopath is going to spot it as well. 

So, it turns out I was right.  He has some issues.  At the end of the day, he’ll probably end up doing alright for himself.  His family has money after all, and he probably has a good job as i write this.  I on the other hand have nothing, and no prospects.   Ah, life. 

Best,
Jim