facebook logo by sylvia

  I have been dragged kicking and screaming into having a FaceBook page.  You see spilling my guts to anyone who wants to see what is on my mind at any given moment of the day or night has never been something that I thought would be in the least way amusing, interesting or remotely informative.   I don’t really think that there are too many of my peers that give a rat’s ass if I am having a senior moment or a bad hair day.

  My college age kids of course were four square against it.  The last thing they needed was having their mom hanging all the dirty family laundry out to dry for anyone in cyber space to see.  Ick!  Whose mom is on FaceBook that has anything of value to add? How un-cool.  And I take their point.

 And since I guard my privacy like the crown jewels I was perfectly fine going along with them.  I have been so under the radar that it took my high school reunion committee almost twenty five years to find me and I have never left town.  (They finally published my name in the newspaper asking if anyone knew where I could be located and my college roommate’s mother outed me. Drat!  I have yet to attend a reunion.) 

  My cell phone number is a closely guarded secret –very few people have access to me by cell which is thought of as quite peculiar in my business, mortgage lending.  Somewhere there is apparently an unwritten law that mortgage loan consultants need to be on call 24/7 just in case there is a mortgage emergency at midnight on a random Saturday. PFFFT on that! If I am not in the office with my data base on my secure server at my fingertips I am worthless.   Whatever that midnight Saturday question is can wait until 8:30 Monday morning or go directly to my office voice mail.

 So I have not been paying attention to FaceBook ….at all.  That’s when my auxiliary kid got into the equation.  If you have read one of my previous posts you might remember him…the one who has many of the benefits of a biological child but none of the responsibilities, other than to fill in if one of the primary children fail-the spare, if you will. So my auxiliary kid decided that it would be a good idea if I was on Facebook.

 “Why?” I asked him, truly perplexed.

“So I can talk to you if I want to.”

That sounded reasonable, who wouldn't want to talk to me?  Even though he is one of the few honored individuals who actually has access to my cell phone number. It is even possible that I would answer his phone call late on a Saturday night-maybe- but okay, I am a sucker for teenagers, what could I say?

 So one night not too long ago I allowed him to set up my Facebook account. (Now I want you all to know that I am not so mired in geezerdom that I couldn’t do that myself…while I would never say that I am a techno whiz, I do have a competence to a certain level.) So I did the kid a favor, he wanted to get the old girl up and running on FaceBook, and I Iet him. I always think it is nice when young people think they are doing something good for the geriatric set.

  So immediately after my page is created came instantaneous outrage from my kids heaped upon the auxiliary kid.  “WHAT?  MOM IS ON FACEBOOK, AUXILLIARY KID, WHAT DID YOU DO???? HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN???”  (As if I have the time to spy on them or something.  Just because I am old (er) doesn’t mean I don’t have things to do.)

  What happened next was most enlightening.  The first person who friend requested me was my daughter eldest’s boyfriend.  Okay, he must not think I am so bad, that, or he wants to keep track of me.

 He was followed by a whole cavalcade of friends of my kids wanting to be my FaceBook pal.  Some of them I have never met.  I am not at all sure what this means.

 What I am sure of is that I decided to use the forum to amuse and entertain-mostly myself, but it seems others are amused and entertained as well.  I get messages from friends of my Facebook friends saying they love reading my statuses.   No one knows for sure if what I am saying is the truth or not and that is okay-I plan to continue to be outrageous so I can keep ‘em all guessing. In my daily work life I am required to adhere to some semblance of the social norm; I find that on FaceBook I don’t. (Don’t get too excited, I keep it clean and genuinely do try not to embarrass the kiddies, but it is kind of fun saying whatever crazy non sequiter comes into my head whenever I want. )

As for my “friends” I am fairly selective.  A friend of one of my kids can get in, others I am a little fussier about.  Just because I might be able to be “found” on line doesn’t mean I want to be found or talk to any old someone who might happen across me.

  There have been a lot of issues with FaceBook and privacy lately and I decided the best way to deal with that is to not tell them anything but my name, rank and serial number.  For one thing I don’t care to be sold whatever they are selling and I don’t really care that much if anyone finds me.  I have never been one to take that stroll down memory lane and talk about old times.  Old times are gone, sitting around a bar yapping about them doesn’t make them any less gone or any more relevant.  Anyone who really wants to find me probably could.  I haven’t been under a rock all these years-actually I have a fairly public occupation.

  I keep hearing that privacy as we boomers know it is heading the way of the dodo bird.  Kind of a shame actually; though I guess I don’t see that being constantly in touch has really done my kids any damage. 

 Seems the American celebrity culture has done a job on a lot of us and we are all desperately seeking our own fifteen minutes of fame.  Not I, anonymity is okay. 

  Oh, but wait, there is my daughter’s reality show….I do want to be in that.