Facebook Rants and the Woman with No Pants

When you say things like, “I don’t understand Facebook,” you risk sounding ancient, un-hip, dumb — none of which looks good on a resume.

That said, I don’t understand Facebook.
 

I signed up – well, ok, my daughter signed me up – for the same reason I do a lot of things, because someone told me I should.
 

I should point out that this rule of thumb has not always worked well for me in the past. Once I shopped at a boutique because someone told me I should, ended up spending $1,300 and getting sued for defamation. I would explain, but not sure I want to go down that road again.
 

I am reasonably sure I am not the only person to make this observation about Facebook, but here goes — who’s talking to whom? And what are they talking about?
 

I thought I knew a little something about Facebook before I joined. I knew you had your own page. So I pictured a sort of video bulletin board with pictures of friends and family, maybe a recipe or two, memorable sayings and warm exchanges. Not a corkboard on my locker, where any stranger passing by could scrawl graffiti or — as the case may be – tell me they’re looking for mayonnaise.
 

Not that it can’t be interesting at times. The very first week of my Facebooking career, I found out that someone I knew had a part of their personal anatomy “propped up.” I did not need to know this about the woman. But I can’t say it wasn’t entertaining.
 

I can be entertaining. Not necessarily in that way because I don’t have any surgery to share. But I could talk about my friend Debbie and I going to lunch today and sitting next to a woman with no pants.
 

We saw the woman getting out of her car and Debbie, being from out of town and unfamiliar with the area, asked if there was a pool nearby. I said no. Debbie then asked if the temperature was indeed in the 50s and rainy and I confirmed that yes, this was true.
 

At this point, we could only hope that the woman, who was 60ish, was wearing a bathing suit under the button-down blouse that did not – I repeat, did not – provide enough coverage for anywhere but poolside, and even that would be up for debate.
 

I should also, just for the record, point out that our restaurant was indoors, had table linens, menus and located not in Berkeley but a Chicago suburb.
 

As luck would have it, the woman sat next to us, enabling us to take stock of the situation and make sure that before we passed further judgment, she had all of her faculties and really was half-naked. Check and check.
 

It also allowed us to watch the woman leave the table for the restroom, and overhear her friend remark upon her return that she had made an especially quick trip.
 

“I didn’t take off my bathing suit,” the woman explained.
 

Now, I would love to read this kind of stuff on Facebook. Allow people to offer their own interpretations. Or to simply let it slide as Debbie and I ultimately opted to do, given that we were eating lunch at the time.
 

But no, other than the occasional plastic surgery gossip, you never get that really good, substantial stuff.
 

I’ll have to try Twittering. I heard that’s fun. And someone told me I should.