This might come to a surprise to some of y’all, but I sporadically meander around on the internet, or as the young’uns say, surfin’ the web. Normally, I check out bargains at Cabela’s and Tractor Supply, but I’ve been known to take a gander at my Facebook page. I belong to a couple of groups that are interesting and friendly, unlike most of the crud you see on Facebook these days. I belong to one intellectual group where members posts puns. Another group posts photos from game cameras. I have contributed to the page with several photos of wild hogs and a few shots of no-longer wild hogs that had the misfortune of walking in front of a rifle scope.
I check out sports news from Dallas and Knoxville on Facebook. I used to watch the talk shows on ESPN but so many hosts are ex-players who are as obnoxious as timeshares salesmen. I will also look on Facebook to see if any family members or close friends are having a birthday. For some reason, I can’t keep track of folks’ birthdays. Heck, I’m doing good just knowing the day of the week and that it’s 2019. What’s that? It’s 2020? When the heck did that happen?
On a rare occasion when it’s too nasty to go outside, I will scroll down Facebook and see what else is going on. I frequently see posts that keep surfacing like the head of a snapping turtle in a swamp. Like that stupid meme (are you surprised I know what a meme is?) with some angry woman and a cat. Maybe, just maybe, I thought the original post was funny, but this post is like a meme with herpes. It’s annoying and keeps popping up.
I have also seen a ton of political posts, some from groups and others from individuals who are profoundly biased supporters of one party or the other. I steer away from these conversations now. I used to comment on a few posts, but I found there are numerous hateful, spineless people who will venomously reply to someone’s clever remark. I have no way of knowing who these repugnant repliers are, but I suspect some are in his 40s, single and cohabitating in his mom’s basement with his inflatable girlfriend and pet tarantula.
Another observation I made while perusing Facebook is there are numerous members who are grammatically handicapped. Okay, maybe it has something to do with their “smart” devices that they are using, but dang, if you are going to share something with thousands of people, proofread what you just wrote. Hey, I’m not real adept at typing. When it comes to tapping on a keyboard, I’m about as efficient a woodpecker in a neck brace. In my mind, I’m an excellent speller, but as the words travel down my spine and over to my fingertips, it looks like my sentence was typed by a cross-eyed rooster.
What I do before hitting the Enter key is read over what I just wrote. You can appear more intelligent among your Facebook friends if you know the difference between “their” and “they’re”. And unless you bought your keyboard at a yard sale, and a few keys are missing, try punching that comma key sometimes. I have read posts that go on forever and there’s not a single comma. Life is too short for spending fifteen minutes trying to decode a Facebook posting of a friend you’ve never even seen in person.
Back in the days when phones hung on walls and computers were only in NASA and sci-fi movies, people wrote in cursive on paper. You could get away with misspelled words by having messy handwriting, but in this digital age, your grammatical ineptness is as apparent as a band aid in the salad bowl. Slow down and proofread your comments before posting something. If your comments keep giving me a headache, I‘m gonna snooze you for another 30 days.
