Chatroom Confessions: The Physicians Online Story

Copyright © 2013 Michelle Cox.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-9830-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-9832-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-9831-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013912474

iUniverse rev. date: 7/19/2013

Table of Contents

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgements

1. The Founding Fathers (And Mother)

2. Tom Tagg

3. The Nemesis

4. Sybil Online

5. The Awakening

6. Oops! There’s A Party!

7. Pregnant Again

8. The Martyr

9. The Middle East

10. Splat

11. Love The Bush

12. I’m Cured!

13. The Wife

14. Until Death of POL Do We Part

15. The Dallas Party

16. Death Becomes Her

17. It’s Hard to Say Good-bye

18. Teen Beat Model

19. POL Stud For A Day

20. The Love Boat

21. Who R U?

22. My Name Is Happy

23. Stop, US Marshall or FBI or Whatever!

24. The Overbearing F

25. The Dungeon

26. Fantasy or Reality?

27. The Witch, The Dawg, & The Geek

28. The Criminal Mind

29. The Girls Who Cried Wolf

30. Philly Parties

31. Frauds Accepted

32. Welcome to Disney World

33. Oy Vey!

34. Déjà vu

35. Getting The KNIFE

36. Splat On You

37. Melissa

38. Hung Like A … Picture

39. Things Are Not As They Appear

40. The Man Without A Face

41. Ben Scanned

42. Hitler Lives

43. Lil Shrink, Big Cheater

44. The Secret

45. All Hell Broke Loose

46. Here We Go

47. The Message Board

48. Strap-on Sisters - The Song

49. All Good Things Come To An End

50. The Pony

51. Vying For Attention

52. The Dog In The Well

53. Die! Die! Die!

54. Just The Facts

55. Betrayal

56. Hitler Goes to Philly

57. It Wasn’t Me

58. The Monster

59. The 600lb Woman

60. The Gastric bypass

61. A Much Needed Sabbatical

62. The Gaming World

63. The Ladder

64. Mixed Nuts

65. Medieval Tymes

66. Instability

67. Time To Go Home

68. The Call Of The POL’ers

69. On The Way To Hell

70. TOS

71. Home Depot Experience

72. The Quiz

73. Mug Shot

74. Picture Shell Game

75. It’s Time To Say Good-bye

76. The Aftermath

Eulogies and Quotable Quotes

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to our fallen brothers and sisters of the chatroom, Physicians Online. I sent a mass email out to some of the people I could remember from our room. The response was overwhelming yet, amazing. Within a week, the list had more than doubled with names long since gone. It became obvious we had made our mark on the Internet and in turn, it left its mark on us.

Compared To What writes of Kalona, one of our fallen: I had the utter privilege of being a real life friend of Sharon’s, and several times pitched in helping out Kau-Kau Wagon, the charity she started from scratch and nurtured and led, feeding the hungry and providing company to the lonely of Honolulu. She did this while being a social worker mediating between police department and the community. To say Sharon was a giant in her 4’9 tough as nails body is to miss the other 99% of her huge heart and incredible character. She is missed dearly by hundreds, and her passing of a brain cancer (even then, done with her characteristic toughness, love, gritty grace and putting others first) left a large hole in the fabric of Hawaii, but Kau-Kau Wagon has continued as one of her legacies."

Although this is hard to top, Lawman wrote, Jesus, looking over the names of those that are now sitting at God’s left side brings back a lot of thoughts of the many laughs I’ve shared with some of these people. My father always told us ‘Death ends a life, not the relationship.’ Remembering his words, I realize what he meant and although they are gone, they’re still in my memories.

To the fallen, may you all rest in peace. You were loved dearly (with your clothes on and off) and you will not be forgotten. I believe each one deserves their own line and should not be crowded with a bunch of commas.

AnnE12551

Audra Dawn

BEHRS

CuteBlondePhd

DrBobDiego

EightCube

Heartanes

Kaitlin36

Kalona4800 AKA AsianPerls

Kingdom

Leg2Die4

Pareunia

RNJaudit

Ruben Ross

Sir Haig

Sm2bdo

Thalamus3

WarmHnds’s wife, Marsha (an honorary POL’er)

Yourserv

Preface

I have been on the Internet since 1995 and have watched it evolve over time into what it is today. I have been an active participant in chatrooms and in gaming sites and lobby activity. I have compiled the different personalities of one particular chatroom and the drama involved with Internet life.

When I signed online, we had Windows 3.1, our primary Internet service was an Internet using 3.0, and it was awesome. It was not as it is today with all these different conglomerates of Internet access. The only drawback was we had to pay 99 cents for each minute we were online. My brother-in-law and my husband decided that with my personality, it was meant for me; this was my stage. They were so right. By the first $9.90 session (about ten minutes), I was hooked. Fortunately, months later the Internet became unlimited for $14.99 a month.

I have decided the Internet is addictive and, admittedly, I am just as addicted as the next person. How addictive is it? People have lost their jobs, marriages, children, and worse, they’ve lost their Internet over this addiction.

For legal purposes and to protect the innocent, I have changed or altered all screen names including mine. The stories and incidents are real; the people are real. You cannot make this stuff up. Although, I did try to keep things in their proper timeline, I did not put things in their exact chronological order. I kept the beginning at the beginning, the middle events around the center of our time and likewise with the end of our time together. Please bear in mind, these stories are based on information I knew about and witnessed, things people have told me then and now, and I’ve written them how I perceived them to be. There was no need to embellish except to put them into words.

Some of the same characters I will be telling you about will pop up under different personas. There was a lot of drama involved with many of the names. It might carry you through a range of thoughts and emotions some of which will be tragic, sad, hilarious, and let’s not forget, insane.

This particular chatroom, Physicians Online, was more than a chatroom on the Internet; it was our home. Here, we bonded. We met each other in person, had annual parties and sporadic events, and spent our lives together here in cyber-space. We became virtual brothers and sisters, even behaving badly as if Mom and Dad were out of town for the weekend.

The parties were legendary, Splat in her scuba suit one year, a dominatrix outfit another, FlyBoyDoc in his ill-fitting red dress and unshaven hairy legs or, Irish Mike wearing GreekLvr’s boobs on his head (I think that was the same party Greek brought a blow up sheep for the men). Whatever the case was, you can believe those parties were outrageous.

I wanted to share my experiences with the world and let them see and, hopefully feel, a little of what I felt back then when the Internet was still so very new. As I describe the different people with whom I came into contact, you will start to see the sagas unfold. For those less experienced, you are about to get an eye full of what goes on behind a computer screen and the craziness that goes with it. To paraphrase The Outer Limits, Do not adjust your pages. The story you are about to read, really happened, on the Internet.

Acknowledgements

First, I’d like to thank Brian Wagner for doing my book cover. He’s such an awesome artist. I have always been a big fan of his work. I remember being in awe of his talent at such a young age and wanting to do all the things with a pencil that he could do. I now realize that I too can use a pencil. I just use it in a different art form.

Second, I’d like to thank Susan Baldwin. Her unwavering faith in my writing and encouragements to write again helped to pull me out of a slump. Thank you for those many hours of editing with me on this manuscript, helping me to get it just right. You truly are an angel to me and I thank you for it.

Last, but not least, Marylou Hamilton. Thank you for being there in Physicians Online with me from start to finish.

I love you all and I feel so blessed to have you in my world. My life would not have been the same without you in it.

The Founding Fathers (And Mother)

One

I n 1995 Physicians Online was opened, created, and nurtured by three doctors and a freelance medical journalist. I cannot remember the other two doctors’ names but one doctor was DrSwt and the writer was SaraH12551. She was often referred to as Sara with the big H because of having so many people in the room whose real names were Sara. This is how we separated her from the others.

We would say, You know, Sara, with the big H? and everyone immediately knew of whom we were talking. The H was actually her middle initial and not part of the spelling of Sara. The numbers were her birth date.

DrSwt was an endocrinologist whose specialty was diabetes, hence the name and, as I said, I cannot remember the other two doctors. I came into the room about six months into its existence and stayed until its death, more than twelve years later.

I had signed online near the end of 1995. I stumbled around for a couple of weeks before entering this chatroom called Physicians Online, later dubbed POL by the regulars. I was a regular. A big one.

Credited as being one of the founding members, GreekLvr often denied it. She was adamant that she only came in the room because a man she was phone-boning (having phone-sex with) dragged her in there. She had actually showed up only a couple of months before I did.

We were both active participants in the chatroom. While much of the drama went on in instant messages and phone calls, I didn’t miss a thing sitting in the lobby. I didn’t have to sit in the loft, as it was called when you chatted in instant messages (IM’s) instead of participating in the room chat. I still had knowledge of a lot of the room drama, more than most people realized.

Although GreekLvr did her share of IM’ing, it was the general rule of thumb that Slick (me), did not talk to people in IM’s (privately). If you had something to say to me, talk to me in the room. Unsolicited instant messages were unwelcome and met with sarcasm and sometimes rudeness, depending on my mood at the time. There were a lot of us that didn’t do the IM thing. We were there to have fun and talk to each other. Eventually though, I did become okay with IM’ing.

I hated the age, sex, location question that often came up in general chatrooms, but in POL, it was rare and if it did come up, we knew you were not a regular. However, that didn’t stop outsiders from IM’ing and asking, A/S/L?

My usual response was, I’m old, I live in a hovel, I’m 4ft 3, bald, warts on my ass, and I have one tooth in my head but, it’s a gold tooth.

I recently had GreekLvr call me and I told her what I was up to. I’m finally carrying out my threat, I said to her on the phone.

Which one is that? she asked.

I’m writing about our room.

After she giggled, she sighed heavily and said, I had some great sex back in those days. It was fab-u-lous!

Tom Tagg

Two

I cannot begin this journey without first talking about Tom Tagg. He was my first experience with oddball characters with whom I was going to come into contact in the next several years. Since he was the first, I feel he should start the show.

It was in the Physicians Online room that I met Tom Tagg and Misty Morn. Tom was a psychiatrist by trade. It was his job to diagnose the mentally ill, prescribe medication for them, and oversee their treatments. Tom would instant message the women in the room and try to engage them in perverse sexual conversations. As a female and new to the room, I was a target. Maybe it was because I was new to the room or new online, period; or a combination of both? Either way I was leery of anyone who would send me an instant message that asked, What are you wearing?

Being me, I could not help but respond, A hard on.

He said, Oh, I thought you were female?

I answered, I am.

He didn’t get it. I’m pretty sure it was because he was in the loft, or IM’s.

About two weeks into my new hangout, I was watching the 11:00 news and the news-breaking story was about a psychiatrist named Tom Tagg who used his real name as his screen name on the Internet. Needless to say, it caught my attention.

The story went on to describe the horror in Louisiana. Apparently, Tom Tagg and Misty Morn had met and spent the weekend together on the Bayou. When it was time to part company and return home to their respective spouses, Tom decided he didn’t want either of them to return home. He shot and killed her at the hotel. The hotel manager, hearing the gunshots and having observed Tom putting Misty‘s body in the trunk of his car, called the police.

Law enforcement arrived and followed Tom all the way to the state line where he exited his car brandishing a gun and ranting about Misty. Before the police could move in and disarm him, he shot and killed himself. It was a murder-suicide.

When I popped into POL the following morning everyone was talking about Tom Tagg and Misty Morn. Big Doc happened to live in the same area where the murder took place. Upon entering the chatroom, he was immediately attacked with questions about the incident as if he were the news reporter from the previous night.

Did it really happen, Big Doc? someone asked. I heard this was their third meeting.

Yes, it really happened, he answered adding, It wasn’t their third meeting; it was the third woman he’s killed.

What do you mean by that? I asked.

Big Doc seemed to have hesitated in his chat but he eventually answered, He was being questioned in connection of two other women who had been murdered. Apparently, he was a serial killer and he had met all three of the women from POL. He used this room as his hunting grounds.

East O Eden spoke up and typed, He used to try and pick me up all the time. He gave me the creeps. I wouldn’t have anything to do with him, thank God!

This was my introduction into the cyber-world. My husband no longer felt it should be my playground but it was too late. Although it gave me cause for pause, I was already hooked and lost in cyber-space.

The Nemesis

Three

G reekLvr probably tops the list of all my favorite people. Most people on the Internet are fake. They lie about themselves and some make up completely new identities and personas. Not GreekLvr. She was real. This woman was as real as you could get in a virtual world. She had the attitude that you could either take her or you could leave her and either way was perfectly fine with her. The fact that she is so real and expects the same from others makes her the Internet people’s nemesis.

We gathered daily in POL and shared with each other. We made it real by meeting one another in person and sometimes, a lot of times, we talked on the phone. The first person I ever spoke with on the phone was GreekLvr.

While everyone in the chatroom discussed Ted Kaczynski‘s arrest for being the uni-bomber, or the upcoming launch of the Space Shuttle STS, Greek was IM’ing to ask if she could call me. I was so surprised and caught off guard. I had been online for about a year and I had never spoken to anyone on the phone from the computer nor had I any desire to do so. My first inclination was to say yes, but instead, I answered, No!

She came back with, Will you call me?

What for?

I need to talk to you about something. It’s important.

I laughed to myself and thought she was nuts but, I gave in and called her anyway, mostly out of curiosity. We chatted like we were old friends. Her call was to tell me what was going on with Panda Bare, a room member. She explained since I had been around for almost as long as she, herself had, and I had yet to talk to anyone on the phone or meet anyone, some questioned as to who I really was.

Most people, and some were, offended by that comment. But, to me, that was the funniest thing in the world, asking me to prove myself to a bunch of phantom people. At the time, it hadn’t occurred to me a person could make up an entirely new identity or that someone would. Let alone think anyone would do it for the sole intention of creating emotional havoc or that it could have a devastating impact on people. I was so naïve. However, GreekLvr made me realize these things. She made me see that even though we were living in a world of make believe, words can hurt. She opened my eyes in more ways than one with that phone call.

What do you mean Panda Bare is not real? I asked in absolute shock and misunderstanding. Someone is on the other side of the computer typing.

It was here that she explained to me about how she and One Man (Panda’s online squeeze at the time) caught her in a web of lies and deceit. I was floored.

Apparently, Panda and I were soft spoken on the phone and sounded similar. The next thing I knew, GreekLvr had me talking to everyone, verifying that I was not Panda. I sounded so much like Panda that even Panda had to call me too just to check it out for herself. She called me under her alter ego, Loving Large.

I remember right about the time, or there after, Clinton signing the Welfare Reform, I had made plans to meet someone. I felt pressured into it because of Panda Bare. It was around my birthday, September, when my husband and I were invited to New Jersey to meet One Man and his new girlfriend, Party Girl. I especially wanted One Man to be the first one I met because of his connection to Panda. I figured that would squelch any further rumors about who I really was. You can bet GreekLvr was next. As it turned out, she was just the same in person as she was on the computer.

From my understanding, there was a lot of wagering going on behind my back as to whether or not I would even show up. I showed up all right, right in the middle of South Bronx in New York at 11:00 at night, but that is another story for a later time.

My husband and I spent the weekend with One Man and Party Girl. We met Da Dog Mistress and Dr Picture that same weekend. I allowed one picture. I don’t usually do pictures. It’s not because I’m hiding anything. I just do not feel comfortable enough in front of the camera so I’ve always avoided them my entire life. Besides, Tom Tagg still played in the back of my mind. I’m a firm believer that if you want to see what I look like, you have to meet me, and I do not go alone. I’m more mellow about the whole picture thing now though.

Sybil Online

Four

P hysicians Online, or POL, had become a second home with a cyber-family. We shared everything with each other daily. Most of us talked about different aspects of our lives, our triumphs, failures, kids, spouses, lovers, current events - the list goes on. As several members have said, We’ve raised our children together in that chatroom.

They even had yearly parties in Philly (I say, they, because I refused to ever attend any of those parties). I’m pretty sure the first Philly Party was in ‘96 just following my introduction to the room. These galas were where everyone would gather and meet each other. Some room members had parties during the year and would invite a handful of roomies over to their homes but Philly was the main event. Even though I didn’t go to the parties, I did meet people on a one-to-one basis.

It started as a way to meet each other face-to-face and it later became something to confirm ourselves or a way to validate each other. The reason being was because of Panda Bare. If there ever was a Sybil personality or personalities online, it was she. She had a screen name for each one of her many personalities.

At a time when it was hard to have just one computer in the house, she was stone cold busted with two. No one had two computers then. It was unheard of. It should not have been an issue but it became an issue when she was using both computers to lure in men to be deceptive and cruel.

This woman was stringing along several men at a time, all of them believing they were her one and only true love. They were never the wiser until One Man caught her. He was her demise and for what it’s worth, I think he was also someone that in time could have brought her out of the closet, so to speak. I think she truly had feelings for One Man. As far as he went, she always seemed drawn to him under various different names.

Panda had men proposing marriage to her online that had never even seen her face before. I know of one pharmacist who