It used to happen whenever the season premier episode “Gazing Through to the Other Side” of Criminal Minds  was on television.

This post — which I wrote during the commercial break in the show — is about a bunch of FBI profilers and is entrenched at the top of the Google search for this specific show. When it airs and someone looks for it on Google, there is Serendipity, at the top of the search — and I get a little flood of hits. It used to be a lot more, but I still get a few dozen at least.

I used to wonder what caused that sudden burst of interest in my site. Now I know  immediately that somewhere, that episode is playing and once again I’ve been discovered … but only for about an hour. These one-time visitors don’t become (usually) followers. They come, they read. Then they leave and forget me.

When I look at my statistics, those individual bars of hits loom far above the other bars representing numbers of hits for a day.

This could have been my 15 minutes of fame, except that no one knows who I am unless they already know me, in which case, they probably are not looking for me via a Google search. I thus succeeded in being secretly famous.

I pondered this conundrum for a while, mulling over how I ended up an anonymous writer.

I never sought anonymity. I post my picture and I sign my name to emails from readers when they write to me. It just sort of happened.

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As for my peculiar achievement — obscurity and “fame” — it’s because it took me three years to add my name to Serendipity. I began using “Teepee12” as my domain name because it reminded me that I wrote a book called “The 12-Foot Teepee.” Not a top-seller. Not ever a best-seller. I used its name as my site address so I could remind myself that I had done something once. This turned out to be a mistake. No one associates it with Serendipity. It took me a couple of years to work it out and it’s a bit late to go back and change it. Moreover, I’m sure other people have snagged the name in the interim.

It never crossed my mind that my “domain name” would make a difference in my life. Who knew? Eventually, I realized I should add my name to Serendipity. At least no one calls me Teepee these days. That was getting on my nerves.

Just in case it had slipped, I checked. It’s till there. Today, search for the show and up I come.

My domain is still “teepee12.” More than five years and half a million hits later, no matter what alterations I make, I will always be teepee12. I suppose that is what I thought I wanted.

I have achieved a modest amount of renown while staying peculiarly obscure. Not everyone can do that, you know.