Child Molester

Two semesters ago, I joked with Ted that we should create a Facebook profile for him using just a sketchy photo and giving him the name "Child Molester." This summer, bored at work, I took the initiative myself and set up the account. Because I used his email address, it required a confirmation from Ted himself before it was activated. Alas, Ted "thought better of it" or some crap and it never was processed.

Today, several months later, Ted decided to finally activate a real account. He entered his email address, provided only the most basic of information about himself, and began inviting friends to be listed as his friend. It was not until afterwards that he decided to look over his own profile and discovered an interesting error: his name was listed as Child Molester. Indeed, Facebook must have greeted him when he first signed in with the requisite "Welcome, Child." Being a novice to Facebook, however, Ted probably took Facebook to be a parental figure rather than addressing him by name.

Ted knew to run immediately to me to straighten out the mess. Before I could help his problem, I had to take some time to enjoy it. Checking my email, I saw a subject line announcing "Child molester has listed you as a friend." I nearly peed my pants. Following the instructions, I accepted Child Molester and it was wonderful. Elsewhere, others were finding the same invitation, and not being as savvy to the joke, were probably confused as hell as to why a child molester was soliciting their friendship on Facebook.

To change his name, it required a password. Since I initially set the password, Ted was unaware. When I showed him that the password was "molester," he didn't seem to find it nearly as funny as I did.

Oh, but Facebook threw a wrench into the plan. For some reason, name changes have to be approved by the Facebook staff before changed. Of course, this procedure leads me to wonder how Child Molester was ever approved as a name in the first place, but whatever.

Hours later, Ted is still a child molester. And I couldn't be happier.