The FBI Busted Me When I Was 14
- The FBI visited me
because of something I did on the internet,
and this is that story.
So when I was 14,
my school gave me these new planners,
which was super tight,
because, you know, I was in Compton.
You don't get much new anything.
Couldn't wait to just plan anything.
If someone was like,
yo, I'm beating you up after school,
I was like, all right, what's your avails,
'cause I need to plan it.
I looked in there, and they had a homework help site,
and I was like, all right, let me go to this site,
that I'm so hype.
(dramatic music)
On the homework help site,
it was supposed to be other students
helping each other, but who's doing that?
The first thread that kind of catches my eye
is the find your internet girlfriend or boyfriend thread.
So I went in there, because you only needed three things
to find your internet girlfriend or boyfriend,
A/S/L, baby, that's age, sex, and locations,
for all the younger people who never had to experience
linking up with people on the net
in AOL Chat Rooms and stuff.
Found a match, and we're hitting it off strong,
and we're very mature for our age.
We skipped all the internet first date stuff.
We went straight to internet sex.
We're going at it, and it becomes a daily routine for me.
Go to school, come home, cyber sexing every night,
it's a great routine.
And it was cool, because I was like
the John Steinbeck of cybersex.
I was just real nice with the pen.
And my dad, he worked at the apartment complex,
so he had his own office in the complex
that I could sneak off to, that had a deadbolt lock,
so nobody could get in there.
And my dad thought I was being studious.
He was like, dang, all of the sudden my son,
he wants to go in here and get his homework done.
Man, I should have got him a planner years ago.
Finally, I did the math in my head,
and it was like, whoa, actually,
that show on HBO, Real Sex, taught me,
I can jack off to this.
So then, I get back there, I log on, ready to go.
She does not log on.
She doesn't log on the next day, and the next,
and I'm confused, I'm hurt for a bit,
but then I go on with my life,
because life moves fast when you're 14.
One day, I'm chilling at home,
and there's a knock at the door,
and it was a white man in a suit with a briefcase.
I live in Compton, California,
and if a white man in a suit and a briefcase
shows up at your door in Compton, California,
nothing good can come from it.
Close that door.
I didn't have the wisdom that I have now, so I say hello.
And he goes, "Excuse me, are you Ify Nwadiwe?"
And I was like, yeah.
And he was like, "Oh, thank God."
And I was like, okay, this has gotten weird immediately.
But I go and get my parents,
and since there's a man in a suit here,
we get to sit in the velvet room.
Y'all know the velvet room,
that special room your parent has for some reason,
no kids can hang out in?
My parents are like, "What is going on?"
And I'm just like, ooh, okay.
Until he opens his mouth and he says,
"Hey, I'm here with the FBI."
I was like, what?
What?
He's like, "Yeah, so, apparently your son
"has been using language online
"that's pretty advanced for his age."
Like I said, I was the John Steinbeck of cyber sex.
He had to come and make sure I wasn't an adult
talking to a kid online and having cyber sex.
This is bad.
Mostly bad because this is the second weird sex thing
that my parents were hit up about,
because the first weird sex thing was in fourth grade.
I got into drawing boobs,
because I figured out that if you draw Ws
and then put dots in 'em,
they turn into boobs!
I was blown away.
If I got a new book from school, boobs.
If I got some homework, boobs.
But then I got sloppy.
I turned in the homework with the boobs on it,
and then my teacher had to go be all extra
and called my parents up and was like,
"You wanna know what your son's doing?
"Here."
You remember that briefcase I was talking about?
Well, he opens it up and pulls out
a nice, thick stack of paper,
and starts handing it to my parents,
and I, I immediately started panicking.
I was a romantic,
so when I would get into the cyber sex mode,
I wouldn't just jump in there.
I would set the theme on Yahoo Instant Messenger
to rain hearts down,
and they'd printed that out too.
All four of us are sitting in this room in silence
as they flip through the pages,
I'm like... (sighs)
They finally close the pieces of paper,
look up at the agent, and just like,
"Alright, sir, it's fine.
"We'll handle this."
And they walk him out and they close the door.
Time stopped.
Is this gonna be a closed casket or open casket funeral?
And they turn around and they just start laughing.
And, you know, that was honestly worse
than any other punishment,
because what I did on those pages?
What I did with that pen, it was art.
So for it to be laughed at?
For the next few years,
my nickname was Chocolate Syrup,
because that was one of my lines in there,
see, I'd said I'd drizzle you in chocolate syrup,
which, as a 14 year old, seems like a good idea,
but now I'm an adult and understand
that requires too much setup and cleanup.
So I guess be careful what you do on the internet,
because you never know who's watching.
(chilled out music)
