Photo by: Jen Windsor
San Diego resident Claudia Barsetti reportedly answered her door early Tuesday afternoon in a state of confusion to find a newspaper reporter asking her questions about what was described as a “future ground-breaking journalistic masterpiece.” Barsetti was apparently uncooperative and unhelpful to the reporter, as she failed to answer several basic questions about secrets and hidden scandals in her past, and couldn’t describe a single newsworthy event that had happened to her since the last news cycle.
Barsetti, a middle-class woman of around 30, described the rising action of the incident. “I just answered the door, and there was a reporter there asking me for a comment. There was no sort of backstory or suspicious actions leading up to it to explain, I’m not sure what you want from me … No, I didn’t hastily hide anything incriminating before I answered the door, why would I do that?”
The reporter, apparently flustered by Barsetti’s nonchalant demeanor, delved further into her life story. According to her statement on the issue, Barsetti explained that there was “absolutely no reason why a reporter would ask [her] to comment on anything,” and was completely taken off guard by the event. She currently works as an accountant for a moderate-sized semiconductor company, which after further investigation does not have any offshore accounts, hidden investments, or embezzled finances to report.
When asked about her childhood, Barsetti revealed that she came from an average family with one little brother, made grades slightly above average that were good enough to get her into SDSU and a few UC schools, and was not involved in any interesting clubs or leadership programs aside from Key Club. Although briefly playing the guitar in middle school, she did not master any musical instruments before the age of eight, write any novels of her adolescent experiences or great struggles, struggle greatly, or realize a detrimental societal problem during high school that motivated her to start her own charity and/or successful non-profit.
“After a little bit, it started to get even weirder,” exclaimed Barsetti. “The reporter didn’t seem satisfied with my responses for some reason, and she started getting increasingly more forceful and anxious, as if she was on the verge of discovering something big that would suddenly help her solve a complex puzzle or gain insight into a problem in the world or something.”
Barsetti continued, “She started asking me if I had had any weird health problems recently, or if I had eaten any food that looked like a famous person. Then she questioned me about whether or not I could do any tricks with my body parts, like pop my eyes out or something, and she looked like she wanted to strangle me when I told her I didn’t have any pets that made funny noises, or knew anyone with a cute corgi she could take a picture of.”
After talking to the reporter for close to an hour, Barsetti had yet to reveal anything of interest, and the reporter seemed to lose focus. “I could tell she was just getting progressively more frustrated, and then after a while she just left as oddly as she came. After watching a fire truck drive past, she quickly mumbled something about a deadline, and then chased after it.” The fire truck was later discovered to have responded to a false fire alarm in a residential house, with no puppies or other baby animals inside, after a man accidently burned the pasta he was making.
Hannah Rosenblatt is an MQ alum. She was the 2017-18 Editor-in-Chief.
