Swenson, Swanson, Samsonite

I am on my company's Relay for Life team, and last week I sent our Team Leader on a wild goose chase for an invisible goose.  A nonexistent goose, even.

Our team met up two weeks ago to discuss strategies for raising heaping mountains of money to benefit cancer research and, as our group sat around the table, each person signed a sign-up sheet.  I have this horrible habit of writing not only my own name, but the name the person who is next to me, and with slight modifications.  When I hand the sign-up sheet off to the person in question then, they are surprised to find they have a different surname than they did before.

My friend Hilary Edwards was in attendance at this meeting and I decided to sign her in as "Hilary Swenson." It just sounded so... right.  However, instead of scratching through her newly invented last name she just assumed Hilary Swenson was someone else, a valid member of our Relay for Life team.  She proceeded to sign her own name below that of our newest imaginary member, Hilary Swenson.

When our team leader Elizabeth Kanost was reviewing the sign-up sheet she came across Ms. Swenson's name and immediately drew a blank in her mind.  She began to ask people in the office "Do you know Hilary Swenson?  I can't figure out for the life of me who she is..."  Forget about raising funds.  She was on a mission to find this Hilary Swenson person.  And so her mission continued.  By the time she finally asked me, Hilary Swenson was practically a real person.  Everyone in the office knew her name, at least.  I would not have been surprised if HR had a file on her.  "Well, she's signed up for the dental plan A, and she has been late to work 5 times in the past 6 months."

When Elizabeth finally asked me about Hilary Swenson I came clean.  We did not, in fact, have a new team member who was adept at hiding under desks, behind doors, in tiny office cabinets.  She just plain did not exist, and that was the harsh truth of it.  Elizabeth did not stab me or kick me in the face.  She just said, "I figured as much," or something along those lines.

I am the human monkeywrench.