How frustrating it can be to have something lodged between the synapses of one’s cortex. A person, place, thing or some tidbit of trivia that only managed to get semi-conducted to your tongue, and there it dangles maddeningly out of reach of your voicebox – usually at the expense of your sanity. Now that Google is at the very furthest a phone call away, the human race has been all but delivered from such minor vexation. All of which is well and fine unless, of course, you happened to be among those victims of fortune who expected to one day come into a tidy inheritance, only to learn that the majority of grandpa’s stock holdings were leveraged deeply into Encyclopedia Britannica. Boy, talk about the royal shaft – somewhere exists the first Encyclopedia CEO to ever say, “Come off it people – what’s with the long faces – this internet thing is nothing but a fad. It’s a pet rock, I’m tellin’ ya – you just forget about all that spiderweb balderdash and get out there and sell some information.”

                    Google, in fact, got its name from the only word suitable for print that was ever heard coming from the padded cell of the majority stockholder of World Book. “Has he said anything today then?” “No sir, just a lot of muttering and something that sounds like Goo-gull.” “Goo-gull?” “Afraid so, sir.” “Goo-gull-huh? Hmm.” “He did shout ‘Yahoo’ a bit earlier.” “Well that’s encouraging isn’t it?“ “We thought so too sir . . . at first. But um, turns out he’d wiggled an arm out of his straight jacket and, well . . . had himself a good wank. According to the nurse.” “Dear – shows he’s still got a bit of spunk left in him?” “Quite.” “Where there’s a willie there’s a way.”“So I have, Jonesy old boy, so I have.” “Very amusing indeed. Y’know they say it’s the best medicine, sir . . . laughter?” “Quite right, yes they do – but for my money, the best medicine would have to be those little chubby Lortabs.” “The little speckley ones, sir?” ”Yes quite. Couldn’t hurt to throw a handful of those in with the ‘mad googler,’ he could gobble ‘em up right off his padded floor. Poor tosser.” “Quite.” “Well, I’m off then, what a day – would’ve been better off stayin’ home and taking a piss in my hat. Call me if anything good happens.” “Right, oh and sir, you might not want to Ask Jeeves that question. He had to Firefox.” “You’ve made a joke, haven’t you sir?”

                    I don’t know why that conversation turned British. Like the Irish, just hearing them talk is funny. It certainly wasn’t a Brit who named Twitter. Twit is the British expression for idiot. Twidiot. Twit, Twitter, Twittest. I haven’t been on Twitter, to be honest, as it turns out I’ve got my hands full with Facebook. It starts off quite innocently, and at first it’s pretty addicting, but if you really start communicating with people on a regular basis, it pretty much turns into a full-time job. I try to just pop in every so often and maybe shoot off a few “say hi’s” to friends and family – maybe get in a couple one-liners. But if you get carried away with it, watch out – it will suck you in and swallow your life whole. Most of the time I find it all pretty bizarre. I hooked up with quite a few classmates whom I really didn’t know much about, and all of a sudden I’ve got half-a-dozen women who wouldn’t give me the time of day back in high school. Sadly, a few of them are now fat and bored and suddenly can’t live without me. Where was that “poke me” function back when I needed it? 

                    The funniest thing about Facebook is when it turns into “show and tell.” It’s like I knew a lot of these people when they were still wetting the bed, and I just think it’s hilarious when they want to show me their neat egg they got. Or their cyber-livestock, “Brenda has just got a cute baby sheep. You’ll know who to ask next time you need some wool. Ha ha.” I’ll know who to ask next time I need some crazy. I’m all for seeing their kids and grandkids, but I can live without seeing their new pretend goldfish or spending the afternoon exploring their little cartoon fantasy farm. Nobody shares what they do for a living or events in their actual lives; it’s like they’ve reverted all the way back to 1st grade. True, I’ve never looked into any of these farms or fish or eggs – so, once again, here I am making fun of things I know nothing about. I figure somebody’s got to do it. Quite.

                    Actually, just the other day, I became engaged in my “maiden chat.” I noticed the name of a good friend blinking at the bottom of my Facebook wall so I clicked on it and off we went a chattin’. Evidently, once you’re chatting, everyone can somehow tell, and before long, everybody wanted to chat. All along the bottom of my screen blinked the names of people I know. I was so unnerved by it all that I could hardly hold up my end of the chat. I didn’t want to appear rude, so I told the first chatter that I’d be right back and clicked away to the next Chatter up.

                    I guess there was something of a momentary sense of accomplishment here, but it wasn’t long before I was longing for those archaic days when you could just talk to people really fast on the phone. Chatting takes forever, plus hanging up is far more difficult and awkward. I thought I’d politely signed off, over-and-outted, and was just about ready to move on, when I got a *Hello? From the dude I was sure I’d politely bid farewell. Evidently, he had more chattin’ in him, or was unsatisfied with our disconnect, so I wrote *Yes? *Still there? *It would seem? *So what’s up? *Since I just hung up – not much, you? *Same here. *Right - I’m gonna zip then, but now that I know how this is done I’ll be looking to chat it up with you soon. Can I just type goodbye? *What do you mean? (I’m not sure, but I think he was giving me chattitude.) *I mean like if I needed to politely terminate our . . . chattage? (after 45 seconds of nothing I type) *Hello? *What’s up? Are you kidding me! All the while I’ve got three other people waiting for basically the same pointless intercourse. (I know that sounds dirty and bad, like I’m describing your parents love-life, but it is proper use of the word so don’t be hatin’).

                The biggest mystery to me is What the Facebook “wall” is all about. Mine is really quite bizarre. I have like celebrities that I somehow signed up through a few famous friends, right beside several people whom I have no idea who they are. Then there’s a dozen or so folks from my high school class that I really wasn’t friends with. A few of whom (in the rude ignorance of youth) we referred to as “Valley Rats” (or “Valley Ruts” for people who felt “Rats” was a tad harsh.) They were just kids, whom, through no fault of their own, lived in the valley (or worse Beryl or Enoch) and had to ride the bus. It was more a product of the meaner minds of 13-15 year old Junior High kids. It started there and sometimes followed a few of the more odd specimens all the way through High School. Good looking girls or “Nice Babes” received full clemency (that currency is universal) but to be honest there were a good handful of said VRs whose lack of regular social interaction and isolation from the prying eye of social norms created one or two web-toed, pocket-knife wielding mouth-breathers whose sisters, cousins or even neighbors you didn’t want to date, no matter how cute and underappreciated they might be. At the very least you were liable to run into a pellet–gun totin’ posse of bitter brothers, cousins, uncles and fringe-dwellers who didn’t cotton to no city-fruits cherry pickin’ the local talent. Best to just go to Mutual and play it safe than to wind up chained to a pole in some long-forsaken root cellar along with a naked, inbred hermaphrodite who’d never gone to the bathroom anywhere else since it cut teeth. (One of those forgotten unfortunates whose existence was no more than a rumor even to the VRs and whose initial attempt at escape was foiled when it chewed off the wrong hand. I should really try to stay out of the “K” section of the library. (to be continued)