A Glitch in the Matrix? Hear Me out...

Am I crazy?

First of all, I just want to thank everyone for their kind words after I published my last story. I got hundreds of DM’s, emails, texts, and nice phone calls. I appreciate all the good conversations I have had in the last few days with all of you good folks.

Thank you!

Now onto the utterly bizarre. Before I tell you what happened to me this week, I need you to know a few things about me. I am generally not interested in the paranormal. I’m not a ‘‘Believer’’ I don’t watch ghost shows and I try to keep my feet on the ground.

Secondly, I haven’t had a drink in 10 days and I don’t take any drug outside of an 800 milligram Ibuprofen.

So, I’m not on drugs and I am as sober as a judge.

Here goes..

On Sunday at around 6 pm, I decided to take a walk up the street to a small coffee shop that I know is open until 8 pm on weekends. I was thirsty for a tall vanilla expresso (amazing) and I thought maybe I would bring a book and hang out for an hour or so. On my walk up, I saw a tattoo shop next door that had one of those ‘‘Grand Opening’’ signs on the window. I looked in the plate glass window and saw a large black woman with piercings and tattoos talking to a guy in a chair. I had been anticipating this store opening for a few weeks and I called an audible grabbed my expresso and decided to go in and chat up the artists as I love tattoos and this place is WALKING DISTANCE FROM MY HOUSE.

So I walk in and look for the art that is normally commonplace at tattoo shops. Artists will display their designs and their prior work. It’s customary. I look for a few and say hey to the store employees hanging out. I say something like ‘‘It’s so cool to have a tattoo shop open in my neighborhood’’ and I look at the desk where the business cards are stacked up. I grab one and notice there is a QR code on the card. I asked the heavyset and heavily tattooed female sitting there if I scanned the QR code would it bring me to their socials or a website and she replied the artist’s Instagram pages are linked to the QR code.

After that interaction, this female said something to me that has had me bewildered up to right now as I sit here on Tuesday afternoon. Here’s how the exchange went, almost verbatim:

‘‘You can scan the QR code but if you take another card you have to buy something. That would be three cards you have taken and the third time is the charm’’

She said this in a joking tone by the way, no rudeness detected at all.

My reflex action was to ignore the comment, but I didn’t do that. Instead, I said to her ‘‘What do you mean, this is the first one’’

What she said next has had me questioning my sanity, and my mental faculties ever since. For half of Monday, I felt like Joe Biden frantically looking for a hand to shake or a child to sniff. I was lost.

This woman said to me:

‘‘That’s your second card you came in and took. Last week you came in here and said it was good to have a tattoo shop open in the neighborhood, you looked at the wall and then took a card’’

My response? Nooo. I have never once been here, I didn’t even know the place was officially open. Gang, I forget shit. A lot. I forget to water the flowers. I forget to take out the trash. I am a hot mess. But..

I have never forgotten going into a business and having a conversation with an employee, ever.

I told this lady I had never been there. I will never forget meeting this woman, she is 300 pounds with tattoos and piercings all over her face, there is no way I would forget this face, she’s impossible to forget. Also, this woman said I came in about 11 AM the prior week. That’s impossible. I work during the day, so there is no chance I could stop by there during the day.

I told her as much and she said something so specific that it is giving me goosebumps even as I type it.

‘‘It was you. You looked at the art, you grabbed a card, and you showed me your tattoo on your arm with bayonets and writing.’’

I about died.

(The Tattoo for reference)

It is of course true, that I have a tattoo featuring bayonets on my left arm. With writing. How could she know that????????????? I was wearing a black hoodie on that night (FJB) So she didn’t see the tattoo. How could she know? I interrogated her for about 10 more minutes and she was adamant, a blonde guy with a Boston accent, a beard, and that very tattoo came in last week and said basically what you said when you arrived about it being nice to have a new shop open here in Providence.

I walked out dazed.

Did I forget I met these people? Am I losing my goddamn mind? Is it possible that I went into the shop when it opened, talked to these folks and just let it slip my mind?

If so that’s a scary proposition for me.

Somehow, it’s far less weird to me if there is a ‘‘Glitch in the Matrix’’ and there is just another Dave walking around visiting tattoo shops and having nice conversations with people. I mean everyone has a doppelganger, right? There are a million similar stories on the internet of people getting confused with their lookalike. If that is the case, at least I am still in control of my mental faculties and didn’t freaking forget I went into this place and had a conversation showing off my ink.

Or there is a 3rd, less sexy option: There is simply a dude in the neighborhood who talks like me, acts like me, and has the same tattoo as me who happened to stop in just a few days before me. The woman in the store is just confusing us. That’s all right?

I have replayed this in my mind 865 times over the last 48 hours and I am appealing to you all for opinions.

You tell me, a Glitch? Or am I going soft?

Can’t wait to hear

Dave