No Needle Tracks On These Arms
Friday, April 24, 2009
Many sisters have I.

One of them, like me, is an active member of the Facebook community. Another one of them tries to be, but since her head is usually spinning around, thanks to her Bazillion-Kids-and-Counting sized brood, we don’t see much of her on Facebook. My other sister, the smarty-pants, lawyer sister, is not a Facebooker.

We've tried to get her to join the partayyy. All of her friends are FB’ers. In fact, they’re some of the craziest FB partiers out there. My one sister even had a campaign going for a time, where she had all the smarty-pants sister’s friends flood her with friend requests. 

It didn’t work.

Yesterday, Smarty-Pants Sister, sent some of us FBer’s this really, RIDICULOUS article about the newest societal prob, Facebook Addiction. It was such stupid nonsense and I tried to wade through the interview with all these losers crying about how their lives have been completely destroyed due to their incessant and uncontrollable need to check their FB, but it was a lengthy article, hard to follow, since I kept having to switch over to Facebook to comment on all the responses I was getting on my latest, controversial status.

You see, it seems O-Dawg is really troubled by the fact that her parents are Facebookers. I was at the kitchen table yesterday, checking my FB. I’d been away from it for over an hour, thanks to those pesky kids and their incessant demands to be picked up after school. I was busy checking back at the party, making sure I hadn’t missed anything....those darn brats.

O-Dawg walked in from school and rolled her eyes when she saw me in front of the FB screen. 

This didn’t bother me. 

I’m a mother of teenaged girls. Eye-rolling and indignant sneers are a fact of life for me. I try to look at it as their way of saying, “Love ya, Mom.” And besides, I didn’t have time for whatever was pissing her off now. 

My friend Mindy had discovered the application, “What’s your Stripper Name?”

Weeellll, let me tell you, when I read she had been bequeathed the name, Ginger Hardheaven, (so absolutely fantastic!), I HAD to find out what mine was! 

I was disappointed. She got the better name. 

I was Lacy Sweetdream. 

The stripper naming spread like wildfire, as all the best applications tend to do. And I was in the midst of checking on all the new strippers that had joined the stripper Facebook party.

When O-Dawg saw me laughing and having fun, (something moms are never allowed to do in their teenager’s eyes), she informed me that she and all her friends think it's “awkward” (her word for everything having to do with her parents) and “weird” that her parents are on Facebook. She had the nerve to tell me then that we had no right! No right to be on Facebook!

At that, Lacy Sweetdream turned back to her Facebook and typed in this status: “My 18-year old just informed me that she and all her friends think its “weird” that people my age are on Facebook. I told her that her generation doesn’t own technology, just like they don’t own MTV. In fact, I do believe MY generation owns MTV, since we started it. So, step off, all you young-‘uns!”

Here’s a sad but True Story: The Hubby and I had been in front of the TV last year watching the opening act of the MTV awards. Truthfully, we no longer watch the awards. The people on there are just so….young. It’s depressing, actually. But, we do love seeing the opening acts because they usually involve snakes or bad singing female pop stars kissing or scary love scenes between Michael Jackson and his former “bride,” Lisa Marie.

When O-Dawg walked in on us watching poor Brit-Brit in her drug-addled haze trying to stumble her way through her lip-synched song, my daughter demanded to know what we thought we were doing watching the MTV awards. 

She so hates the fact that her parents had a life before becoming Ward and June Cleaver.

So, as the Lacy Sweetdream bad self I was, I decided to confront these young-‘uns on my Facebook. And Man, what a pot I picked to stir! All of my parent friends felt the same way. Giving their “Hell, to the Yes’s,” and “Who DO they think they are? We have the right to text and FB, too!” and “So, young-uns, what was the first video ever played on MTV?”

We, “weird” folks knew right away. The Buggle’s “Video Killed the Radio Star.”

That’s right, young-uns, long before you were anything but a terrible fear in the back of our brains, controlled by birth control pills, we were rockin out with Martha Quinn to Pat Benatar, Men At Work, The Police, and Billy Idol.

I set all those whippersnappers straight including the O-Dawg there on the Facebook letting them know: You do not own technology. You do not own MTV. You do not own anything. In fact, your car is in mine and your father’s name, so….Step Off!!!

After telling off the young folk, I went back to the ridiculous article, which I was totally skimming. In between the stripper naming and the teenager bashing, Facebook was THE place to be last night, instead of reading some lame report.

This nonsensical article when on and on, blabbering about how many Facebookers get so caught up in their addictions, they start to think of their Facebook as reality.

What losers.

As I was reading about the woman who was complaining about not having a social life because she was always on Facebook, my instant message dinged.

Now, if you’re not up on Facebook technology, the instant messaging is a way to live chat when you see other friends are on Facebook, too. When my instant message dinged, I immediately panicked.

It was an old friend from high school, weighing in on the controversy. My hand flew to my hair. I gasped. How could I Facebook with my old friend in my state? What would he think? It was 5:00 in the afternoon and I had no makeup on, my hair was screaming, “Homeless, Any Spare Change Will Be Appreciated,” and my t-shirt had a big stain down the front of it. (It was a writing day.)

It took me a few seconds to snap out of my panic, realizing my words would not give away my secret. For all I knew, he was in his skivvies, popping a brew and eating Lucky Charms out of the box.

I never finished the article. It didn’t apply to me.

Besides, I was busy reading the comment that one brave teenager had left for me. It was from my beautiful, sweet, and insightful niece, Erin, who had to be talked off the ledge, when I helped her mom sign up last week. She wrote, “You all have very good points…us 'young-uns' don’t own technology and we definitely don’t own MTV! But, I think what O-Dawg and her friends really mean is “I really don’t want to accept the fact that my parents are actually cool and tech savvy.” Because, I’m sure you would have been mortified if GRANDMA had thought MTV and Video Killed The Radio Star was “totally rad.” All that said, I think it’s completely awesome that you guys are on Facebook. I’m trying to feel the same way about my mom’s recent joining. Maybe O-Dawg and I should form a support group.”

She had some valid points in her sweet, as usual, way. But, there's just this one, little thing... 

Do NOT ever, ever, and I mean ever compare me to Grandma. We are of no possible comparison. It's like comparing apples to chainsaws. No.

She’ll see someday, how frightening and utterly wrong it feels to be compared to your mother. Her day's coming, sooner than she ever thought possible. Heh-Heh.

Besides, Grandma never worried about being cool. She worried about being short.

Facebook, give it a try, if you haven’t already. And don’t listen to all those harpies out there. Addictive -What a laugh!

I’ve gotta run. My friend Derek is recruiting for his mob in Mob Wars and I have definitely gotta be in his murderous gang.

Today’s Must Have Download: The always wonderful, Aimee Mann’s, “Save Me.”

“But can you save me-…..From the ranks of the freaks….”

I’m not admitting to anything. What happens on Facebook stays on Facebook.





1 comment:

Mindy4TA said...

Loved it! You ROCK!

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