in your face(book)!

It’s like this: I can barely function b/c my brain is too busy arguing with new meds to pay attention to me. Left thus unattended, the rest of me has been playing hide and seek with the cat all day. There I go scrambling under a table, clamping a hand over my mouth so Maus doesn’t hear me giggling.

And this guy named Parks Carleton is calling me about a Jaguar. That's right, Parks Carleton. It’s selling at half its blue book value. Which means I’ll have to put my feet through the holes in the floorboard and run, but at least I’ll have a hood ornament.

On top of this, it’s Application Rush Week on Facebook and things have reached fever pitch. Every day, there are fifty new emails jostling elbows in my inbox. Accept a drink! Send a shot! Throw a penguin! And all these invitations demand that you not only accept them, but round up new recruits. Lately, Facebook is pandemonium. An army gone amuck. Go take a look. We’re all bellowing at each other like lunatics: I WANT YOU ON MY WAGON! HUG CUDDLE PUNCH CHEST BUMP OR PINCH HANNAH NOW!!!!!

The My Lil Green Patch application involves Andrea and Dug running about on my imaginary plot of grass costumed as Straw Barry and Sweet Clementine. They’re running from cartoon bunnies and deer but if I don’t force every single person I’ve ever met to play this baffling game by persistently emailing them, the real rain forest, the actual breathing trees down there in South America will DIE.

What Color Are YOU? What Character Are You on the Hills? What’s Your Secret Sexual Fantasy??

Mamie sent me the Best Friends application. And I foolishly felt something like glee when I realized she was declaring us Best Friends. Upon further investigation, I learned I was in fact Best Friend number 12. That, combined with the fact that I’m not in her Top 8 Hotties, made me lock myself in my room and blare ‘You Can Go Your Own Way.’

I am not joining any of you people on the Oregon Trail. It’s hard enough to shower every day, I cannot be a pioneer with you.

Nothing beats out, though, the applications which invite you to buy people pretend drinks and pretend gifts WITH REAL MONEY. Want to send Emma a fake beer? That will be $3.50 and we’ll need your credit card number please. What. The. Fuck. It’s like the Emperor’s New Clothes. Somewhere, a sixteen year old kid is living large and shouting ‘SUCKERS!!!’

And there’s no way out. Like an exorcism gone wrong, I’ll remove the entire application, only to find the next morning that I am part of a virtual parade, along with several other of my educated friends and that Mamie’s bought me an Aloha shirt and that I have celebrated Diabetes Awareness month with Miriam and Daisy. What’s that? You want to accept the Happy Hour Invitation from Jarvis? Sure thing. Just import all your contacts from Gmail and get them to join. Then you can pretend to enjoy your make believe Mojito.