Lance Houghton is a high school history teacher from Knoxville, Tennessee, and at first glance, he might just seem like a regular guy. But on closer inspection, there’s a good chance he’ll remind you of a certain iconic TV character, as, amazingly, he is yellow and knows Maggie—just like Homer Simpson!
Wow! It’s almost like Homer Simpson himself crawled out of the TV to live in our world.
Due to the heretical books his mother read while she was pregnant, Lance was born yellow like a lemon and yellow like the sun. And being yellow, it felt almost like a stroke of fate when he met Maggie on a train in 2006, kicking off a friendship that’s continued to this day, with the two regularly keeping in touch over email.
Most of the time, Lance is just a normal guy who happens to be bright yellow like the banana’s bitter peel, but several times a day, he gets emails from Maggie saying things like, “This is Marge’s friend Maggie. Let’s meet in the woods to exchange information,” and then he’ll have to go to the woods to exchange information with Maggie. If you’re reading this and thinking, That sounds like Homer Simpson to me, you’re not the first!
What’s it like being basically the exact clone of a classic TV character like Homer? Lance says most of the time it’s fine, though he does get some good-natured ribbing from his students. “Sometimes during class I’ll mention that I received an email from Maggie, and the kids will all start laughing and saying things like, ‘Hey, Homer Simpson, where’s Carl?’ or, ‘Hey, Homer, do you live near Carl and think about Lenny all the time?’ Their taunting makes me furious, but it’s against the rules for me to do anything about it. I guess it’s just the cross I have to bear for being yellow like the sun and knowing Maggie. Something about that combo just makes people think of Homer Simpson.”
Lance says that in addition to emailing with Maggie and meeting her in the woods to exchange information several times a week, he also occasionally sees her on the train and waves at her. He says that getting to know Maggie has been boring, and that she is one of the most uninteresting babies he’s ever emailed with. “There’s basically nothing to know about Maggie except that she sleeps in a crib and her best friends are Marge and Lenny,” the real-life Homer Simpson explains. “The only other thing I’ve learned about Maggie after all these years of emailing is that she co-owns a racehorse with Larry David and Carl.”
Uh, last time we checked, the only other bright yellow man with any knowledge of Maggie’s financial dealings lives in Springfield and goes by the name Homer J. Simpson. Honestly, looking at Lance, you’ll swear it’s actually Homer Simpson turned real by a magic spell—the resemblance is almost spooky! Nonetheless, it’s still pretty cool, and we hope that Lance will say hi for us next time he meets Maggie in the woods to exchange information.
