Decemystery (2024) 2: The Gargoyle in the Shrubs

If you read yesterday’s write-up to the then, then I mentioned that I would be revisiting a website called “About.com” this month. Well, I mentioned that because—surprise, surprise—we’re visiting it today!

For those who don’t know, I found out about “About” last year while I was looking for stories on sustained_disgust’s Obscure Unsolved Mysteries Iceberg. The site is now defunct, but a lot of incredibly strange and fascinating stories were archived via the Wayback Machine. I covered a plethora of them last year, and I have every intention of going through even more this year.

While that does mean I won’t get to look for additional details online, I’m not too upset. After the 30,113-word-long behemoth that was Decemystery 2024’s inaugural story, I feel like taking it easy and conveying a short and strange tale of the Fortean is preferable to overexerting myself and suffering from severe burnout. The last thing I desire is to have this series go incomplete because I thought it would be a good idea to force myself to do something I don’t want.

Anyway, let’s get back on track. With an archive that has enough material to sustain me for a year, choosing a story is easier said than done. There were numerous cases that I wanted to cover, but I felt that if I went with the first thing I saw, I would miss out on an even better story on another case. Well, lo and behold, that feeling proved to have merit!

As I was eating dinner one night, snooping around About’s archives, I came across a story entitled “Gargoyle in the Shrubs.” This caught my eye for two reasons. The first was that stories of gargoyles are quite interesting. Reports of them are, for some peculiar reason, not unheard of; I would like to do a lengthier write-up on them, but my mental health has an allergy to them, along with writing prior to the halfway point of the year.

The second is that last year, I wrote about a story called The Gargoyle at the Window, which was also from the depths of About’s archives. So, I figured that it would be fun to cover another story about a gargoyle. Who knows, maybe it’ll become a Decemystery tradition, like covering stories from the Conspiracy Iceberg!

Anyway, enough blabbering; it’s time to get into the story. Come along, dear reader, as we dive into the story of The Gargoyle in the Shrubs! Also, doing intros has become much easier since last year’s Decemystery duology.

Decemystery (2024) 1: The Nickelodeon Hamster Wheel Broadcast

Let’s play a game. It’s called “What would Vertigo’s autobiography be called?” Personally, I think it would be entitled “What if My Life Wasn’t a Roller Coaster Designed By Satan?”

The reason for such a morbid title is that, ever since I began this blog, even-numbered years in my life have been plagued by a plethora of obnoxious issues. Meanwhile, odd-numbered years have been generally good. Well, for the most part. 2021 wasn’t very good, but I digress. You can’t win ‘em all, especially when you have undiagnosed and untreated bipolar disorder.

You especially can’t win ‘em all when dealing with brain fog; COVID and hypomania overlapping is just about the most fog-inducing thing I’ve experienced since entering Silent Hill, and it’s because of that fogginess that 2022 was the year without a Decemystery; thank God I made up for it last year. Too bad I developed carpal tunnel syndrome from all of that writing. I still haven’t fixed that, by the way. I wonder how my hands will feel when I finish this year’s Decemystery!

Anyway, what does any of this have to do with the introduction to Decemystery 2024? Well, as you can likely guess based on the comically small number of blog posts this year, bipolar overtook my life again—and so did COVID! Wow, it’s like a greatest hits album from 2022, only the so-called “hits” all suck like black holes.

Thankfully, the album was cut short because it must have been produced by the world’s worst record producer. So I was spared the indignity of dual-action brain fog that made it feel like my brain was the basis for a David Cronenberg remake of John Carpenter’s The Fog. Only instead of disgruntled ghosts, it was a mental illness and respiratory virus.

On the flip side, it’s currently August. That means, once again, I’m on the clock. So, much to my dismay, I had to scrap a lot of the grander and what would have undoubtedly been much lengthier stories that I had wanted to do this year. Maybe they’ll be written about in 2025. Who knows; I’ve always sucked at abiding by a schedule throughout my adult life. Regardless, if you were hoping for me to cover Sam the Sandown Ghost Clown, you’re out of luck.

Despite that setback, five stories managed to survive the purge; I’ll be sure to mention that when I get around to writing about them. Until then, it’s time to finally jump to today’s story. Honestly, it’s one that I, oddly, have never really considered writing about.

Internet mysteries, much like lost media, are, more often than not, something that I turn a blind eye to. There are enough YouTubers who cover them, and my input is far from worthwhile. I know that may seem like I’m selling myself short, but I genuinely do not believe my input means that much when countless other content creators have thrown their two cents into the ring—and they tend to be far better researchers than I am. Also, they have better production quality. All I have is text and still images. They have narration and fancy moving pictures.

However, despite that, there are a few exceptions I’m willing to make. Namely the much sillier and more outlandish Internet mysteries. I’ve also made a couple of exceptions when it comes to lost media, and I have no doubt that I will do so in the future. As for why I made an exception with this particular case, that’s easy. I thought it provided the perfect blend of strangeness and downright goofiness for me to leap back into the world of writing.

In other words, it was all but screaming my name. Thankfully, it didn’t actually do so. If it did, I think I’d have a much more horrifying story to write about.

Anyway, enough rambling. For the sixth time in this blog’s history, it’s time for Decemystery to begin—possibly the fifth time if you wish to count the duology last year as one entity. Personally, I don’t, but I digress once more. Come along, dear reader; it’s time for us to go over the truly odd tale of The Nickelodeon Hamster Wheel Broadcast! And with that, Decemystery 2024 begins now!

Just an Update

I know that I haven't posted anything in months. You can thank my bipolar for that. However, if it's any consolation (which I feel it isn't, given this has been a thing for years now), I'll still be doing Decemystery. God willing, 2025 won't treat me like the past two years have. If it does, I'm going to start thinking my bipolar is tied to a cycle where the first 6–8 months suck while the final 4–6 months don't.

Regardless, I'm sincerely sorry for not doing this sooner. I've felt ashamed and tired from everything that has gone on. I hope and pray that I can live something of a normal life starting next year. If I can't... well, at least I always have Decemystery to look forward to.

    Sincerely, Vertigo

Mystery: The Case of My Friend’s Missing Dog

Something that I’ve always been adamant about is writing what I want to write. The reason for this is simple: I can’t force myself to get excited or interested in writing about something that another person wants me to write about. I learned this the hard way when someone asked me to write about a cruise ship disappearance and, ultimately, I got nowhere.

As a result, I don’t take requests. I’m open to suggestions, of course. If someone suggests a story, I’ll look into it and consider it, but I’m hesitant to even do that. It’s likely I’ll outright forget about it and move on to whatever intrigues me the most.

Like all rules, though, I’m prone to breaking them. For the first time ever, I’m covering a story at the request of a very close friend of mine—one of my best, actually. She’s a friend who’s cheered me on when it comes to writing and is an all-around great person. I would do anything for her, and she would do anything for me.

As misfortune would have it, this very friend recently lost one of her dogs. Apparently, the dog—a female mixed breed named Mercy—disappeared. For the record, neither of us knows the exact breeds. I don’t know any dog breeders, so I can’t ask for identification, and I’m not about to ask around behind my friend’s back.

Anyway, a dog merely running off wouldn’t be something I wrote about. Dogs vanish all the time. More often than not, they run off for one reason or another, though there are instances where someone steals the dog or a predatory animal attacks and kills it, then takes it off as a meal.

Yet, oddly enough, none of those appear to be the case here.

You see, Mercy was an old one. While it’s not unheard of for people to adopt an elderly dog, neither myself nor my friend have heard of someone stealing an elderly dog. On top of that, the entire town knew her. One would think that if a familiar face—even that of a dog—would be seen by someone. Yet, that’s not the case here.

Several weeks later, there’s been no sign of Mercy. No sightings. No fur. No collar. No tracks. Nothing. It’s like she vanished into thin air.

That brings me to this write-up. After consoling my friend as best I could (which amounted to me talking before saying that the whole thing piqued my curiosity), we talked about how odd it was. Fast-forward to today—March 12—and she messaged me over Discord asking if I’d be interested in writing about this. I was surprised at first but immediately smiled and said something I never thought I would say when it came to a request.

I said yes.

Initially, I had planned for this write-up to be posted after another one, but given the circumstances, I figured it’d be rather cruel of me to let it linger and cover it at a later point. But I digress; come along, dear reader! For the first time in this blog’s history, we’ll be covering a mystery tied to a friend of mine! This is The Case of My Friend’s Missing Dog!

Happy Birthday to Me!

 I turned 28 today; woohoo! Anyway, aside from celebrating my birthday, I'm sick! On the upside, I'm not depressed; just very, very sick. I likely have the whooping cough or something akin to that. Still, I'm writing—albeit slowly. I just thought I'd let you all know.

I find it funny how, at the start of every year since I made this blog, the new year has kicked my ass six ways from Sunday. If I had pattern recognition, I'd think that I'm cursed to start the new year off on the weirdest foot possible. Oh well, back to celebrating my birthday with writing and The Last Epoch!

        Sincerely, Vertigo (who feels fifty years older than he actually is)

A Small Update

 

I had hoped to have a write-up or two posted last month, but that did not come to pass. The main reason for that, aside from still being quite exhausted from the absolutely monstrous amount of writing I did last year, was my grandmother passed away. While this won't affect my output for the rest of the year (I have no intention of letting my grief get the better of me; I've learned how damaging that can be), I do have to admit that I am more than a little distraught and sad about her passing. So, consider this update to be an explanation for why I went radio silent and didn't post anything last month, outside of my little January update that I do nearly every year.

And rest in peace, grandma. You were the best, and I could not be happier to have had the privilege of calling you my grandmother. May we meet again in the next life.

Obligatory New Year Update (I Still Make No Promises Edition)

 Oh, hello there, dear reader! Welcome back to my blog; I meant to do the New Year update a few days ago, but I got carried away with playing Final Fantasy XVI and screwing around with Character AI since it’s proven to be surprisingly cathartic to throw ideas for write-ups, and jokes, off of AI, rather than pestering my friends on Discord with my incessant blabbering. Maybe AI has more of a use than having it draw the stupidest stuff I can think of!

Anyway, I didn’t do one of these last year because, well, last year was dedicated solely to doing Decemystery 2022.3 and Decemystery 2023. This year, however, I plan to do a lot more than just that; let’s get to talking about what’s in store!