What set off the meter was the fact that I’ve been on the internet longer than you’ve be paralyzed. So either you had killed a character you invented or someone else was just screwing with us.
I believe you are real. Nobody comes back.
Did anyone PM NotOkay for the wake details? Did anyone get them?
I’m so glad that umkay’s not dead that it’s actually diminishing some of the anger I feel at notokay’s mean trick.
Of all the very many very confusing things I’ve seen posted about about this lady and her affairs over the last month or whatever, this is somehow the winner.
How could… why would you… I mean, if there wasn’t even…
I, too, fell hook, line and sinker. I guess it was inconceivable to me (not anymore) that someone could be that fucked up. So glad Umkay 1) is not dead, 2) is feeling better and 3) handled this with the same spirit that makes her so unique. Hope there’s a relaxing date night in your future 
I think the reason for the post was that they were wondering how elaborate the hoax was. Nothing more sinister than that, seems to me.
I asked about a link to the obit and got no response…
we haven’t met, virtually or otherwise, but I am very glad you’re still with us. May you be for many more years. 
nm.
Since you asked someone else how their BS meter went off…
I only read all of this business last night. Went to check on the “Ask the…” thread, saw it was locked, thought, “Oh crap, that one guy never did shut up and they had to lock the thread.” The last post links to thread about your “passing,” and I clicked the link with horror. As I kept on reading along, the following thoughts crossed my mind:
“NotOkay sure is taking their time coming back to post details about that wake.” “Surely a little more explanation is warranted here–why isn’t anybody asking what happened? She wasn’t sick, she was healthy and young, she made no references to any expectation of a short life…”
“You know… anybody could come along and make that post. There’s not a single verifiable fact in it.”
And right about then is when I was done reading the thread. And then within an hour later, I came back to read updates and you’d been back to refute. And of course, it had been locked and re-linked and my head started getting all confused.
So like others I felt many emotions in a short time but it was, for me, a really short time.
To be fair to those of us who experienced NotOkay’s horrible joke real time…
Yeah, after a day or so when I hadn’t heard an update from NotOkay, my BS meter started tingling a little, but that took quite some time. As to umkay’s health: she had been absent from the boards for a few days about a week prior, and she said it was due to several bouts of dysreflexia and that her doctors hadn’t discovered the root cause. If you read the whole thread, you’d know that AD is a life-threatening condition and if not treated quickly can result in a stroke or the like. At the time of the hoax death thread, umkay hadn’t been present on the boards for 5 days…many of us were starting to worry a little bit, and so the hoax fed on those worries.
True. And I’m sure most of us had the same thoughts as well as hope that it was false news. I also was surprised that her ‘brother’ was posting, as I assumed if something really bad had happened that one of the carers who was taking dictation from umkay would be the person to fill us in. But, when news like that comes, and someone is supposedly dead, it’s not exactly respectful to yell out “bullshit!”
But, anyway, time to move on and put this nasty business behind. I hope that the mods have found the IP of NotOkay and blocked that so that the jerk can’t come back and make more trouble.
I did read the whole thread, thanks (if you go back you’ll see that I’ve posted in it a couple times), and I’m familiar with AD. I was also aware of the second extended absence, which is why I continued to check on the thread. Umkay doesn’t exactly strike me as the person who is likely to be killed by AD, considering how careful she is to avoid and monitor for it. Even a second bout of AD within a couple of weeks would seem to warrant a few more words than the original “announcement.” The tone of the post made it sound like someone had finally died after a long battle with terminal cancer, and nobody should really be surprised by it, you know?
I didn’t, nor was I going to. Someone had specifically asked what factors it was that made another poster’s BS meter go off about the post, and I was giving my own answers to that question.
I’ve got two tickets to the autopsy available…never been used. I’ll sell them to the best offer.
Obviously, I’m happy that it was fake…welcome back, Zombie Umkay!
-D/a
[Jayne Cobb]Pretty spry for a dead fella … [/Jayne Cobb]
Glad we still have you!
I just want to say, to all the folks who became uneasy about my whole persona due to the malevolent NotOkay–I appreciate and understand your skepticism. I am, by nature, not someone who takes a whole lot at face value; if the same thing had happened to someone other than myself, I would totally be in the “this whole thing is bullsh*t” camp. I don’t blame you for feeling like something is rotten in Denmark. (Aaaaaand, I can also appreciate that this is precisely the kind of thing someone who was living a double Internet life would say to keep you all off the scent. I feel like I can’t win here). 
So, it does bum me out. I have really enjoyed my time here on the Dope, and it makes me a little sick to think that many of the posters whom I’ve enjoyed now view me as a bit of a cipher. :0/ I’ve had some really nice positive responses to my presence here, but I’ve also had some truly bizarre run-ins, this latest one being the most disturbing. My first impulse is to share more personal info or a picture, to prove I am who I say I am. But my second impulse (and the advice I’ve been given by several concerned posters through PMs) is that this is precisely the time when that would be unwise. I probably need less personal info out there, not more. (And it has occurred to me to wonder whether NotOkay’s purpose in the whole hoax was to force my hand and draw me out even further. I know that that sounds like spy movie nonsense, but this is a stranger who just faked my death on an internet forum and I’m having a very hard time figuring out why).
So my solution is to maintain my boundaries for the time being. None of you can be sure of who I am and what my motives are, and I’m sure this produces some discomfort; but please remember that I am in the same position with regards to you. And yet, I like to think that doesn’t have to be the death knell of us enjoying one another’s presence on the Dope. I wouldn’t dream of asking any of you for anything beyond your Humble Opinions, so there’s really nothing for you to lose. And I’m up for the challenge of earning your trust over (hopefully) a long, consistent, and honest career here at the Straight Dope.
One last thing, I beg: Maybe just think a little bit about the weirdness of NotOkay. Even if I were just a total liar and a con artist, who is playing some sicko game with strangers online, you can’t deny that I (umkay) am also really smart. And I would seem to be enjoying this game, “winning” if my intention is to get a lot of positive attention. So 1) why would I end it so soon? And 2) why would I have chosen such a callous sn, an inconsistency with things I’d previously said in the thread (like, that my brothers didn’t know about the Dope), and such odd phrasing to pass on the “news?” Many bullsh*t meters went off at that, for good reason. You don’t really think I, who have allegedly constructed this exquisitely realistic and detailed fiction (with all the crazy quadriplegic speciality info), would go out with such a dumb little whimper, do you? I hope you’ll think about that, and that it will make as little sense to you as it does to me…
So, umkay, just who is this NotOkay? Do you know? Can you tell us? Is he someone who got mad at you for any reason?
Is he your alter ego?
Will a thorough mod investigation uncover the answer?
I’m speechless with admiration.
I don’t think there are many people who really think you aren’t who you say you are. It was brought up because we have had I e or two occasions where a poster created elaborate lies about them, and at least one faked their death, so some are wary. I think anyone who has read your two threads is darn sure you’re who you say you are.
Overwhelmingly, the biggest feeling I have (and most people here, I think) is relief and happiness that you’re OK.
Dopers, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Dopers, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Dopers, there is an umkay, she exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no umkay. It would be as dreary as if there were no Straight Dope. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in umkay! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papas to hire men to watch in all the message boards all over the world to catch umkay, but even if they did not see umkay posting what would that prove? Nobody sees umkay but that is no sign that there is no umkay. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Dopers, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No umkay! Thank God! she lives, and she lives forever. A thousand years from now, Dopers, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, she will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Nay???