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This is probably the best thing I ever posted on Twitter. The memory is pretty dear to me; I'm sharing it here so it still exists somewhere if that place collapses.

It still gets shared probably once per month by "wholesome meme" type accounts on IG and Facebook. Each time I get a stream of messages from old friends asking "Is this you?”

I've even seen it shared on here; it's so strange when it racks up hundreds or thousands of reposts for other people. Someone will share a screenshot, maybe add 📚 and 🔦emoji, and then half the replies mistake it for an actual post.

The strangest thing is seeing someone else share it, get a bunch of replies, and try to walk this tightrope where they respond without acknowledging that it's someone else's kid.

I'll add the same comment here that I added when I first shared it on Twitter: The “great dad" replies warm my heart, but my wife was in on it, too. It takes teamwork to run this kind of scam on a savvy kid.

Wayne Werner

@mcnees Was it you or someone else who told their kid that they'd pay them $1/book read, and they were up to something like 350 books that year and the kid was convinced they were ripping their parent off 🙃