Good morning, Hank, it's Tuesday.

So the background here is that several years ago, you and I both got huge red messages from Gmail that was like, we believe your e-mail has been accessed by a foreign government and we were both like, well, that's weird and unfortunate, but then we moved on with our lives.

But then a couple months later, I got a phone call from a friend. Not a close friend, but a friend, and he was like, hey, my buddy who's a diplomat is coming to Indianapolis for the Indy 500 and he'd like to meet you. And I was like, great, we love to welcome people to Indianapolis for the greatest spectacle in racing and so I was put in touch with this diplomat, and at the end of the email it had his job title and it was like, 'Special Regional Assistant for Trade' and then I wrote back this Special Regional Assistant for Trade and eventually, we decided to meet at my office on Wednesday afternoon. Perfect!

So along comes Wednesday, and a nice fellow wearing a suit shows up at the office with a very, very nice bottle of scotch as a gift for me. We go to my office and over two glasses of his very nice scotch, I try to break the ice by saying something like, "Hey, you know what's so funny is that your job title, Special Regional Assistant for Trade or whatever, that sounds like you're a spy." And then he looked at me with no response whatsoever. Just dead, dead eyes. Absolute silence. The silence went on for so long that I took a long drink and then said nervously, "S-s-so what do you do?" and he said, "I mostly work in intelligence."

And then I'm thinking okay, so I pivot, and I say, I think you'll have a wonderful time at the Indy 500. It's such a special thing and he says, "I won't be able to stay for the race."

So this guy, who mostly works in intelligence and who is in Indianapolis to attend a racecar event he won't be able to attend, is sitting across from me in my office and he starts to ask me questions. And Hank, you know this story, you've heard it before. He asks me a lot of questions. He asks me how much my mortgage is. He asks me about my AFC Wimbledon sponsorship. Is it expensive? Why do I spend money on a foreign football team? He asks me about my family and my job and my working relationship with my brother and he asks me if I've ever been to Russia.

To which I say no, and then he asks me, have you ever been critical of the Russian government and I say, yeah, hasn't everyone? Except for one noted American politician and he says, "What I'm trying to understand is why the Russian government would be so interested in you and your brother that they go out of their way to hack your particular email. Could it be only because you've been so critical of them on Crash Course?" And I was like, "Dude, I also don't know!" 

At that point, I notice that I've absolutely drained my glass of scotch and pour myself another one.

Now, Hank, I don't know if you've ever been interrogated by a professional diplomat, but I told this guy everything. I told him about my mortgage. I told him the nature and cost of my AFC Wimbledon sponsorship. I told him that I pay foreign tax because I have foreign book deals. I told him my marriage was good. I told him every thought I've ever had, private or public, about the Russian government. If he'd asked for my ATM pin number, I would have given it to him. He just had a way of making my feel that it was a great idea to answer all of his questions. He wasn't coercive, he wasn't impolite, he just made me feel that me answering his questions was inevitable.

Now I did ask him some questions as well, and we did have a conversation. It's just that over the course of the conversation, he extracted an extraordinary amount of information about me. In total, the meeting lasted about an hour, at which point I was slightly drunk and drenched in sweat because 1) I'm a sweater and 2) As long-time nerdfighters likely already know, I have little capacity for international skullduggery.

So this fella finally leaves with a warm goodbye and what felt like genuine gratitude for my hospitality and I immediately call my father and I'm like, "Hey, Dad, I think I just met with a spy?" and I tell him the whole story and when I'm done, my dad says, "Well, it sounds like they concluded you're neither an asset nor a threat, just a dad from Indianapolis." and that's my basic conclusion, Hank, and also, one of the central ambitions for the rest of my life. I wish to be neither an asset nor a threat, except to certain pharmaceutical companies that limit access to tuberculosis diagnostics and medications. Other than that, I'm just a dad from Indianapolis.

Hank, I'll see you on Friday.