The Fresno hardware store has a policy now

We owe a hardware store an apology.

When we published the Action Jack dossier, we mentioned that one of the women who claims to know him provided a phone number, and that the number rings a hardware store in Fresno. We noted the store "would like it to stop."

It did not stop. It got worse. It got worse specifically and measurably because of us.

#What we did

Before publication, the store was receiving what the manager described as "a few a month. Mostly nice." After publication, the store received, in the first nine days, one hundred and forty calls.

We would like to be clear that we did not print the number. We printed the existence of the number, which we believed was different. It is not different. We have learned that it is not different. Somebody found it in under an hour and the rest was arithmetic.

#The policy

The store has a policy now. It is laminated. It is taped to the register at a height that suggests it is read aloud frequently. They have asked us to reproduce it in full, and we are doing so without edits, including the part about us.

REGARDING THE MASK

This is a hardware store.

We do not know anyone called Action Jack.

We cannot pass on a message.

There is no message. There has never been a message.

We do not know why you have this number.

Regarding the mask: we do not sell it, we have not seen it, and asking a follow-up question does not change any of the above.

If you are calling about paint, please say "paint" first.

The website that started this has been contacted.

They have not called back.

We had not called back. We have now called back. Point 9 has been retired and we are told this required a fresh lamination, which we have offered to pay for. The offer was declined in a tone we would describe as final.

#Marisol

The store's position is handled almost entirely by an employee named Marisol, who did not apply for this and has become, by attrition, the world's leading authority on the subject.

She keeps a binder. We asked to see the binder. She said no. She then described the binder for eleven minutes, which we think was the more damaging option and which she may not have intended.

The binder has categories. There is a category for people who are crying. There is a category for people who are certain. She says the certain ones are harder.

"They don't want information," she told us. "They already have information. They want me to confirm it. And I can't confirm it, because it's a hardware store, and they take that as confirmation."

#The thing she said at the end

We asked, as we were leaving, whether she personally thought there was anything to it.

She restocked a shelf for a while. Then she said this, and we have transcribed it exactly:

He was in here Tuesday.

We asked her to clarify.

She did not clarify. She said the register camera covers the register, that he paid cash, and that she is not going to be the reason this continues. Then she asked us, politely, to buy something or leave.

We bought a tape measure. It's a good tape measure.

#Findings

The number is real. The store is real. Marisol is real and is owed a great deal by people who have never thanked her.

We do not know what happened on Tuesday. We are not going back to find out, because the honest truth is that our going back is the entire problem, and there is a version of this where a small business in Fresno spends the next decade answering a phone because a website thought something was funny.

So: please stop calling the hardware store. If you need paint, they are excellent, and you should say "paint" first.

If you need to do something with the feeling instead, go walk into the labyrinth and be pursued by your own doubts for a while. At least those have the decency to be yours.