It was not until I moved to a small town in Tennessee that I became a cryptid.

Sure, I have long been one spiritually, even philosophically, with my ability to move nearly silently despite my large size, and my reflexive tendency to just lurk like a pile of gnomes failing to look like a bush, but others paid me little mind unless I happened to be blocking a fire exit.

But then I moved to a small town called Sweetwater (home of the underground lake the size of a pond that is referred to as a sea) and I realized that I too was now a big fish in a smaller pond.

As my dear friends Amandoll and Dollissa can attest, I am a large fellow, at 6 feet 4 inches and 300 pounds, which are likely different numbers in metric. Neither have seemed particularly tense around me, perhaps due to knowing I am as gentle as a well-sedated fern except where puns and pizzas are concerned.

But this town sees me differently.

My first clue to this came one cold winter day when I staggered into a Dollar General in search of something likely not worth the trip, wearing a heavy coat, big hat, and pants or whatever. I stopped near the door to re-assess my will to live and heard a voice beside and somewhat below me mutter, “Oh Lord, he’s a big ‘un!”

I reflexively turn my head to the noise to make sure I’m not about to step on it and see a boy in his young teens regarding me as one might a Statue of Liberty full of Ghostbusters. His eyes embiggened further as he registered I’d heard him.

“Uh.. HI!” Before the last syllable was out of his mouth he bolted out of the front door like he had just realized he was inside of a Dollar General. I hope it was to a place that sold shoes because he laid rubber across the parking lot like he was a DeLorean set to 1955. He was out of sight before the doors closed.

Some time later I was browsing the We Don’t Know What This Gadget Is shelf at the local thrift store and had dared bend my frame over to inspect what turned out to be a phone sanitizer near the floor when I heard a shopping buggy behind me. From the corner of my eye I see an elderly lady stop, turn to someone behind her, and say in what she might have thought a whisper, “LOOK OUT, HERE’S A BIG ‘UN.”

A younger lady I assumed was her daughter came around the corner, took one look at me, and made a sound like she yearned to leap back in time and undo the circumstances of her own conception. She took her mother firmly by the arm and led her off in the direction of this really fascinating thing that I think was a box full of kayak parts. I was grateful, because I was about to bite through the phone sanitizer to keep from laughing and that might void the warranty.

So twice now I have been called “big ‘un” by presumably unrelated people, though the thrift store does sell shoes. This is no mere coincidence, like when I get my head whacked in ceiling fans. This calls for RESEARCH and SCIENCE.

I pulled up chatGPT like any proper researcher and asked what the odds of being called a big ‘un twice in several months was. After several minutes of making the power grid flicker in California, it spat out three paragraphs from a Jim Butcher book and seventeen pictures of large-breasted anime girls, one of which looked like Chewbacca. Ironclad PROOF.

Armed with this knowledge, I went to the local library to research newspaper archives of cryptid sightings, but they turned me away at the door because I still hadn’t paid for repairs to their ceiling fan. I reiterated my argument that it in no way had metal blades but it fell on deaf ears, perhaps because their desk fans are just as shoddy.

Fortunately confirmation came not long after at another Dollar General in the form of my getting into an argument with an infant.

Now I know what you’re thinking, but I am NOT deranged. The baby started it and showed not the slightest shred of remorse. 

I was checking out when a young lady of eight or so saw me, stepped behind her mother, and had her bend over to whisper into her ear.  The mother stood and looked at me, holding the baby, and said, “Yes, he IS tall!”

I was distracted trying to find the proper part of the POS terminal to whack with my phone, and stood upright to face my accusers. “I’m tall?? Who says I’m tall??”

The girl steps out from behind her mom and points at the infant. It all clicks into place. 

ONLY A CRYPTID CAN HEAR A BABY.

I remember my science teacher screaming that on her last day of work, after the kids in the back of the class finished chewing through the gas line. Science wins again.

I turned to face the baby. “Is that so, BABY? Who are you to hurl VILE SLANDERS at a man you just met?”

The baby was unimpressed. I remembered the advice my father gave me on this third-ish wedding day. “There is no ethical way to win an argument with a baby. You can only retreat as soon as you can.”

I gathered my purchases and turned to leave, blustering my usual warnings about my powerful stride and to verify the quality of ceiling fans before their purchase. But my mind was elsewhere. I’m the town crypid. What if I get an awkward statue, or thrown in the cave pond so I can be a local nessie?

I am still working out what being a cryptid entails. If I have duties, places to lurk, Springs to forecast. But what I do know is something I’ve really, honestly, always known: I’m a Big ‘Un.