Aaron Gershfield Explains Life’s Conundrums
Aaron Gershfield is a paralegal who has devoted his life to answering life’s most difficult questions, which stem from his own observations and the curiosity of friends, co-workers, and strangers. He spends hours every day contemplating issues from French Fries to highways in an attempt to discover new mysteries, which he can answer simply by using logic. Having graduated from Kent State University, a center for logical thinking, Aaron Gershfield is well equipped to handle the myriad questions that press upon him daily. His ability to explain any phenomenon with his expansive logic makes him a well sought-after commodity, particularly to heads of state. The United States Secret Service has been after him for nearly a decade, trying to recruit him to extrapolate the reason and purpose for Area 51. Using his acute cognizance, Aaron Gershfield has succeeded in evading the government’s agents thus far, but unfortunately, the Russians have also begun to seek him, and they have been quite persistent in their chase.
Since the Americans would rather see him dead than fall into the hands of the Russians, and vice versa, it may only be a matter of time before Aaron Gershfield succumbs to the fate of all men. He has already had a few run-ins with snipers, possibly Navy SEALs or former KGB operatives, and he has come home from work multiple times to a suspiciously ransacked apartment. At first, he was not sure what they were looking for, but after carefully dissecting the situation, Aaron Gershfield realized they were after his red, spiral-bound notebook, in which he keeps the answers to some of the world’s most perplexing questions, like “What is the meaning of life?” (By the way, the computer is wrong. The answer is not 42.) The paralegal started carrying the notebook with him at all times, but that did not stop the break-ins. After the raids, his apartment was frequently strewn with dirty socks and his coffee table covered in half-emptied, dumped over take-out boxes, which naturally led him to believe his intruders enjoyed going through his laundry hamper and ordering in Chinese. However, he eventually realized this was all the work of a renegade raccoon (you know how easily they can make their work look like that of a human) who was likely employed by the Russians as a scare tactic. Little did they know that Aaron Gershfield had already pondered raccoons, and because he understood why they are the way they are, he was unaffected by the Eastern Europeans’ strategic move.
One ransacking in particular has stuck with the legal assistant quite vividly. The incident took place several months ago and involved a clash of powers unlike anything the world had ever seen. It all began when a Russian spy and an American spy crept into Aaron Gershfield’s unassuming Sacramento apartment on the same night to either coerce him into revealing the answers to their governments’ most perplexing conundrums, or end his life. Unfortunately, the two men mistook each other for Aaron Gershfield and a battle of wits commenced with each trying to keep their identity and nationality a secret. The trouble began when both parties signaled for backup, and, before either of them knew what was happening, the two men caught in a chokehold had unwittingly started WWIII.
American and Russian troops flooded the apartment, and just as the two parties were about to open fire on one another, Aaron Gershfield’s key rattled in the front door. The soldiers took cover and waited to see what other country had sent its agents to capture the infamous logician. The door swung open to reveal the silhouette of the paralegal. He stepped into the apartment and the beam of light from the open door illuminated the two soldiers cemented in a stranglehold competition in the middle of his living room floor. Suddenly, the American spy, realizing that another spy would know better than to come through the front door and would have used a side window like all other spies, whipped out his PDA with his free hand and brought up a photo of Aaron Gershfield. By then, the Kent State Graduate had used his hefty understanding of logic to surmise exactly what was going on and had run for the nearest safe house, which he easily deduced to be his neighbor’s doghouse. While still choking the Russian, the American spy shouted, “Afa ‘im!” (which, when one is not in a chokehold would have sounded like “After him!”) Thankfully, one of his Special Forces compatriots, who was waiting outside with the rest of the American spy's backup forces, had taken extensive classes in Strangleholdese and translated for the troops. The Americans and Russians rushed out the front door, but since they had been in hiding, no one knew which way he had gone, and so the troops dispersed.
Later that night, Aaron Gershfield returned to his apartment, stashed his red notebook under his floorboards, and lay awake analyzing what he should do next. While the rising number of assassination attempts upon his person would have scared the average international spy into complying with the government (or desisting in all future use of logic) the heightened danger of the situation only sharpened Aaron Gershfield's senses, and emboldened him in his pursuit of knowledge. Now, more than ever, he desired to share his findings with the world because they deserved to know the answers to their deepest questions. Knowing exactly what he should do, Aaron Gershfield got up in the middle of the night, retrieved his notebook, and copied out all the answers to the questions he had pondered over the years with the intent of making them available to everyone. If you desire to know the answers to your tough questions about government secrets, word origins and meanings, innovation, the paradoxes of humanity, food history, and popular sayings, look no further, for Aaron Gershfield is equal to the task.