In the Houston suburbs, in a small apartment complex, where a small group of friends lived, lived a big fraud. When phone lines rang and rang forever, where most days, nobody would ever
notice, there was Josh. Or, as his caller ID said, Willie Nelson.

Josh was the Willie fan. He had been to every show he could, skipped school, work, weddings and graduations to embrace the lifestyle. He basically lived in Margaritaville.

One year, when he had to change his phone bill, he thought it would be a good idea to be Willie.

So, he lied to the telephone company and said one of his roommates was named Willie Nelson.

They bought it, and from there, the rest was history.

Caller after caller, Josh was delightfully surprised by the amount of people that were able to find “Willie Nelson’s landline.”

Caller after caller, people would flood the line.

Caller after caller, a few rare ones got through. If it seemed important, Josh would do his best to get the message to Willie. He would try to go backstage and tell security—he enjoyed running around behind the scenes.

It was a game for him, he meant no harm, and he was sure that Willie would have done the same.

When you think about being mean after all, Willie Nelson isn’t the last name that comes to mind.

Josh thought the same until, “Hi, yeah, this is Willie Nelson. I was wondering what your real name is, if it really is Willie Nelson.”

He was shocked.

They continued to talk on the phone, and Willie invited Josh backstage to a show in Austin

Josh apologized, and understood that the messages were personal, and said he liked the parasocial relationship they had before.

The two parted ways, and returned to Josh and Willie.