Oh man. the main inspirations for Scary Barry and Terry Reynolds are people I hope you never encounter.

One hundred per cent miserable, and equally evil as her counterpart Barry, there is no pleasing Ms. Terry. She gets joy out of seeing others suffer. She’ll bite the hand that feeds her and once you’re sore from the fresh wound, she’ll bite it again to make it hurt that much more…

Imagine going on a trip overseas to study, experience different perspectives and have fun. That was my hope in the summer of 1999. when I took classes through my university for a study-abroad program in Italy.

What comes to your mind when you think about traveling?

Being forced to share a room with strangers who hated me was the last thing I expected.

Scary Terry was one of the haters. Much older than me, Terry made it a point to harass and belittle me. One time she woke me up and called me “whiny” because I was, you know, groggy like most people who just got up?

And then there was the time Terry told me to cover my legs. I have an autoimmune condition which affects my skin. get over it. Terry, if you don’t like it, then don’t look at it. Find something else to do in Italy than harass a fellow student.

I did smile when Terry had the audacity to talk trash about me at dinner, in front of all the other students from the United States. They told her to shut up and said they did not want to hear it. Neither did I.

Sadly, this Terry person (yes, the real name is Terry, different surname of course) majored in education. I feel bad for any student of Terry’s. No wonder we have some awful teachers in the school system.

When I got home from Italy, I told my family about the abuse I endured from her and her cousin, with whom I was forced to room. Since I did not grow up in a supportive family, they invalidated me by acting like it was no big deal. My feelings are valid.

To help process the trauma from repeated verbal abuse by Terry and the cousin, and the gaslighting I faced when i went home, I created my character Terry Reynolds. I will discuss the cousin in a separate entry.

Taking your road test is nerve-wracking enough. Imagine living in a small city where the sole proctor is a malignant narcissist, taking joy in seeing people fail. Meet the inspiration for Scary Barry Reynolds.

Barry (again, real first name) loved telling students “YOU FAILED” in a stoic tone, with a hint of an evil grin.

Imagine greeting your proctor as you enter the car “Hi Barry” only to be screamed at, likely out of fear “How do you know my name?” And then told “I. Don’t. Like. That.”

Barry may look like Leon Kowalski from Blade Runner, and act like him. It goes without saying he would fail any empathy test. Maybe I should run the V-K Test on him and watch him fail. I just won’t ask him about his mother.

After failing my road test five times with Barry, I passed my test when I took it in another city and of course a different proctor. I had called his supervisor, per advice of my driving instructor, who failed to address the problem, saying “he makes his quota.” Yes, some doctors graduate at the bottom of their class. What do you call them? Yeah, a doctor. .

When I first got the spam, I thought it was for EarthBound cheat codes. Think again.

These morons tried to sell a psychic attack self-defense e-book. The spammer only accepted a check mailed to them, and then they promised to email you the electronic book after they got your check. Yeah, sounds legit.

The email was so funny, I had to save it, and use it for something.

Around the time I got the Defense Against Psychic Attack spamvertisement, I spent a lot of time on message boards chatting about metaphysics. Fans of Dragonball Z asked how to make “PSI Balls” and some even made videos pretending to “psychic attack” people using them. I thought the whole darned thing was so funny, it needed to prompt a story idea. Most of my ideas sat dormant in a different series, which I merged into MoronicArts.