Lately I’ve caught myself talking to my Facebook page … aloud without regard to who can hear me. Sure it would be easy to write this off as a sign of getting old except for two important factors; I only do it when reading Facebook and I’m not that freakin’ old!
My phony baloney job requires that I travel quite a bit. so it’s not uncommon for me to find myself browsing my Facebook page in an airport lounge or boarding area. I know what you’re thinking, but I save reading the hardback classics for the flights, it’s just difficult to give serious reading like Solzhenitsyn or Dan Jenkins their due concentration with babies crying and boarding announcements going on constantly.
It’s during these times that I’m most likely to come across some ridiculous posting by a friend of a guy a knew in the fifth grade that always seems to illicit an unintended response. I’ve noticed that when this happens, people tend to find new seats as far from me as they can get. While this isn’t always a bad thing, it’s probably a good sign that I need to respond to these posts in a more quiet and dignified manner … at least until I get to my hotel room.
Since so few people read this column and even fewer seem to be offended enough to respond to anything I write here, I’ve decided that this is the perfect forum to respond to random Facebook posts. Starting from the top, here is the kind of nonsense I’m dealing with today.
The very first post on my feed says “Packaged salads recalled from Wal-Mart after a dead bat was found inside.” My first thought was of course there was a dead bat in a packaged Wal-Mart salad … you’re buying packaged produce from Wal-Mart! Consider yourself lucky you got the bag with the bat in it because the fly larva and weevils are so much tougher to find. The bats just kind of jump out at you … well probably not the dead ones, but you get my drift.
I scroll down the page to find a posted video graphically demonstrating what snake venom does to human blood. Who freakin’ cares? I already know that snakes, particularly the huge venomous types shown in this video, are to be avoided like a collection call from the IRS. I know their bite will kill me, call me crazy but I don’t really care how or why it kills me.
Next, I came across a picture of somebody’s cute toddler and uttered an audible “AH.” Toddlers are cute and, from my perspective, the only real reason for Facebook to exist. It’s how I get to see a steady flow of pictures of my grandkids and if I happen to see cute shots of other people’s grandkids it’s a bonus.
Then, boom, there it is, the dreaded political post. I won’t bother you with the details or even with which side of the propaganda war this particular one was launched from … you’re welcome. It’s just a typical “they suck, we rule,” post that will be read and celebrated by like believers and totally ignored by everyone else; in other words a complete waste of time. My audible response to this was, “Oh you’re a conservative … I’d forgotten since you’re 27 posts yesterday.” I should really learn to let this stuff go.
Oh great ... “If you love your daughter like and share!” Oh, stop it … just stop it already! Everyone loves their daughter, hates cancer and depression suicide and other terrible things! I’m going on record right now that I despise all of the appropriate bad things and love all of the stuff I’m supposed to, so please leave me alone! I’m not going to repost whatever is on your mind that day. Stop it!
One more scroll down and I came across a video of some baby goats playing in some sort of baby goat playground. Who knew they even had those? For the record I’m not a huge fan of goat videos or videos of barnyard animals in general but I have to admit these little critters were cute as all get out. Jumping around and throwing their heads … beats the heck out of watching snakes!
I wrote this while sitting in an airport terminal, so thanks for saving me the embarrassment of shouting out these thoughts. OK, I said of few of them out loud but honestly, those were some freakin’ cute baby goats!
Rick Seley is an award-winning humor columnist. He may be reached at news@lahontanvalleynews.com.