30 December 2008

Am I missing something?


So the other day, we were driving home from XMAS and stopped in Santa Barbara to run the dogs on the beach and then grab a taco at a taqueria. I wander up to the counter of a taqueria at some strip mall, and the guy in front of me in line is taking a really, really long time to order. He is large-ish, and really sweaty. Wearing navy blue poly type work pants and thick black rubbery shoes and a navy jacket stretched tight over his back gut. Like a security guard maybe? Low budget rent-a-cop? But he's like going through EVERYTHING on the menu with the counter girl like every single item is some kind of rare disease with a 9 part Latin name and numerous side effects. And did I mention he's really sweaty? Because he's all hunched over the counter, and I can see his sweaty neck hairs and then I notice. He is wearing a wig. A sort of flowing, chestnut colored Ray Orbison wig. So I am sort of sidling over to try and peek at his hunched over face. Because I just have to. I see meaty, fleshy fingers, crumpling up the paper taco list, his running commentary on each thing just wacked out. It's tacos, buddy. But I can't quite peek at his face. I'm dying to know what his face is.

Finally, he selects some kind of burrito, and mentions that they don't have all these kind of burritos at home.

The counter girl says, "Oh, where are you from?"

There is a long, dramatic pause. And he straightens up, and announces, "Somewhere else."

Then he turns around and looks me dead in the eye. I glance away because he has freaky lips and the look of the insane. Plus he has sweaty neck hair and is wig wearing and just took like 4 hours to select a burrito from your basic tacqueria. And it's like, what is the etiquette on that?

I ordered my tacos, and we went to separate corners to wait for our orders. No one else in the joint. Every so often, I surreptitiously peek over because it's hard to tear my eyes away from his wig. Sort of a page boy cut, you know? But sometimes I can tell he is looking at me and I'm like, ew. Then I'm like, I'm a mean, shrewlike lady and what is the big deal and you could even just march over there and strike up a conversation, you know? I know people that would do that. You are so obsessed about his damn wig and you wanted to know who he was and now you are totally obsessed with him but you won't even go and talk to him.

So instead, I just dig through my purse and fish out my reporter's notebook and write down some incomprehensible scribble about his wig. But I glance up one more time and now his fleshy, shiny haired face is chomping into a foil wrapped burrito.

So I bring this up because I just learned the Facebook and honestly, the Facebook has me sort of baffled. I know you know how to use it because some of you have friended me. Befriended me? Friend collected me? Some of you are friend friends and some of you are internet friends and some of you are dog agility friends and some of you I didn't really know we were friends and some of you are maybe someone that lived down the street from us and I am honored that you have friended me.

I think. I think I am honored. To have 12 friends. Which in Facebook land is like you might as well be wearing sweatpants that say Juicy on the butt and walking your goldendoodle dog around with a choke chain. So not cool. In Facebook land, 112 friends is a border collie that never budges an inch in their down stay and if you're toting Louis Vuitton, it's a super rare obscure one. Although I don't know what I'm talking about. It could be ok to have 12 friends?

And we write on walls and network socially and then the Facebook people do what with our data? I guess it's sort of like blogs except no, it isn't. Blogs is like I go stand on my front porch in my underpants if I want but you can only go sit in your car out front and honk the horn. And if I want, I can drive over and sit in front of your house and stare at your porch and maybe I'll honk my horn or maybe I won't. Because mostly I spend a lot of time picking out my underpants and don't really care about seeing yours. Facebook is like we are all wandering around in our underpants and you can see everyone else's underpants and you tell one person about your problem with sweaty neck hair and then all the other kids in the cafeteria know about it too? But you still have to ask them if you can sit down at their table to eat your lunch and maybe it's just easier to just have an apple and go play with the dogs?

Or just wear your wig in a taqueria and sweat a lot?

So the moral of this story is what? Were we talking about running contacts, Susan Garrett? Uh. The answer is yes. I will be your friend. Super duper thanks! But I am not going to show you my underpants.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think this is a very astute summary of Facebook! Thanks, Laura! I suspected as much, but there was this nagging feeling that I was maybe missing something...?

Maybe you can also tell me why the Twitter???

Happy new year!

Laurel

Anonymous said...

I saw a dude with a pageboy hair do the other day. It was dyed jet black and was a combover. Yes, a combover that started at the back of his head and was styled to look like a pageboy hair do in the front. It could have been a wig, but it wasnt because I could see his white roots.

Elayne said...

Maybe Emo Phillips has fallen on hard times?

I'm also flummoxed by Facebook. I have a whopping 22 friends and so far not a single one has offered to help me paint my living room. All they do is throw snowballs at me, some of them I think made from yellow snow.

Elf said...

I dunno, elayne, one of the other facebookians had at least half a dozen FB friends offer to chip in a dime each to help her buy a new washing machine. Maybe you need to borrow someone else's friends. I personally would gladly contribute a dime to helping you get your kitchen painted.

When I first got onto facebook, I stuck in my entire email address book and it showed me a list of people on FB who matched the list and let me ask them to be my friends. That was nifty. Then I could watch out in case any of them were showing their underpants. Then I started getting friend requests from people that I knew vaguely who they were but didn't really think that we had actually ever really met, and I'd send them a message saying, um, have we ever actually met? And none of them ever replied, so I didn't add them as friends and they just sit there in my Friends Requests bin, reminding me that at heart I'm really an antisocial old bi...ddy.

I hate facebook for hooking me in. But I keep going. Maybe I like underpants. Or perhaps I think that mine are particularly interesting.

One of my non-dog-agility FB actual relatives looked at my friend's list with photos and said, "Am I mistaken or do all your friends appear to be--um--dogs?" We are such outsiders by having photos of our real faces, at least in some respect.

As for weirdo men in ugly pageboys--I'm thinkin' No Country For Old Men. Just hope he doesn't offer to let you flip a coin for something. Or ask to be your friend on Facebook.

team small dog said...

I might be wrong here, but I think if Facebook is underpants, Twitter is little teensy thongs. Which we have approved once, for dog agility usage.

Elf said...

I'm not signing up for twitter. Not not not.