A lot of things in the front of my address book needed to get thrown out. A couple calling cards for phone companies I didn't use anymore. A few receipts and some old addresses and phone numbers from people I still know (and updated in different sections of the book). And then I came across a name I didn't recognize on a red lined sheet. A few more bits of dead address debris and I found the same name with a different number on a yellow piece of paper.

I've had the book since I started college. My mom bought it for me at the same time she bought my books that first semester. It was important to remember everyone's number, you see. I wasn't meticulous about it. I don't think I have any names or numbers from people I went to college with that first semester (the only one I spent at K-State), but I do have contacts for much of the last eighteen or so years.

Memories are strange things. Sometimes they mutate and sometimes they die. And other times they are exact right down to what people were wearing and what kind of day it was. But names I've always been bad at. Even unusual names.

So we'll call this mysterious person Joran Van Der Sloot. This is not the person's real name. In fact, it was a woman's name (although more of a girl than a woman at the time). And it wasn't a terribly unusual name, but an off spelling of a somewhat common one. But I saw Joran Van Der Sloot (the name and eventually the face) on the news recently. And, even with video, it was hard not to completely convulse into laughter at that name. It's like a white trash family wanted to be aristocratic but totally screwed it up. Even funnier (or at least adding to the guffaws) was an uncle of this Joran Van Der Sloot named Jug Twitty.

Pass me the moonshine, I've got concrete evidence of mass inbreeding in Georgia.

So I'm not talking about the real Joran Van Der Sloot or his uncle Jug. But for the sake of humor, I'm gonna use the name.

Two pieces of paper with Joran Van Der Sloot's name on it. And, somehow, I'd followed this girl (or she followed me) for a couple of different phone numbers. It was college, this happened a lot. I don't even remember all the phone numbers I had before I last moved in 1996. Four or five, if not more. And I rarely called myself, so why remember my own old numbers?

Was this a past romance? An old friend? A chance glancing blow where we kept meeting and forgetting each other's name, so she kept giving me notes with her name and number on it?

It's hard to say. And I have completely forgotten many people's names from the 90s, even as some have remained ingrained in my mind. Most notably, I forgot that a guy named Chuck Klosterman wrote for my magazine. And he's semi-famous now. I haven't found a piece of paper with his name and number on it, although I'm sure if I did, it wouldn't be the right one. But this also illustrates my forgetfulness of unusual names along with all the different Matts I've known in my life.

Is the mind like my computer's hard drive? Something I've filled up and then moved a chunk to another hard drive and erased the duplicate info? And why do I have two numbers for this forgotten Joran Van Der Sloot?

I do have my long suffering address book, though. After throwing a few things away, I stopped going through it. After finding two numbers for Joran Van Der Sloot, I think I got a little scared of what I might find. But really, how much more unusual could it get than finding two numbers for a girl named Joran Van Der Sloot?

The answer to the riddle of Joran Van Der Sloot isn't as exciting as the reveal at the end of my Chuck Klosterman riddle. It only took me about fifteen minutes to figure it out, actually.

Joran Van Der Sloot was a long time girlfriend of a friend of mine. But he's married to someone else now, and, probably, Joran Van Der Sloot has gotten hitched as well. My friends predisposed to marriage seemed to find a way to do this. And those of us confused by the length of a life have somewhat resisted the urge to couple up forever.

And now Joran Van Der Sloot's old phone numbers are torn up and in the trash. They will eventually biodegrade in a landfill somewhere near Albuquerque. Most likely I'll never hear or really think much about Joran Van Der Sloot again.

But maybe Joran Van Der Sloot and Jug Twitty will form a bluegrass band. Or maybe just a juice harp and jug combo.

Matt Worley's original pen name was Jeez de la Schmooze, but it was deemed quite unrealistic in focus groups.