With all of these media sites highlighting my new-found fame, I could only watch it happen, helplessly. For all of their indignation over my journalistic failure, not a single one of the national or statewide outlets reached out to me. Not one. How is it that scores of internet trolls can find my email address, but the Huffington Post and the Idaho AP can’t? Then again, I probably would have ignored it anyway because there was no way they were going to allow an ounce of redemption, and I knew it. They had their delicious narrative. I was the buffoon and no comment was necessary. The instant it was picked up nationally, I was checkmated. I had no recourse, no comparable media platform at my disposal. It was as terrible and as helpless as you can imagine. Even more disappointing, a few people that I honestly thought were friends, shared online my unfortunate story with glee.

The night after it began, in the height of the Twitterstorm from Hell, I left my smartphone at home and took a walk alone in the cool air. I tried to feel a sense of silence and peace even knowing a hurricane of hatred and ridicule was swirling around this sudden national caricature of me. And I was faced with a few questions: How bad will this get? What impact does something like this have on my wife and kids and other family? Can I write past what I’ve now become, and do I even want to try?