Okay Day

By The Big Guy

Senior Contributor

Something I said to Grumpy a few weeks back reminded me that I still existed in the horrific world of facebook. Three or four years ago when I was still young and foolish I took the evil empire up on their offer to put my account into deep storage rather than just flat out delete it. They call it deactivation, which up until this point just meant to me what a university does when a fraternity burns their chapter house down but nobody dies.

So I logged on for the last time and followed the instructions to completely delete my account for now and ever more. Before clicking on the okay button I decided to take one last look and see what I may have been missing during the time I’ve been away. I saw pictures of people I didn’t know, some of them mostly unclothed. I read about things that I would have known just by sitting still and breathing air. I saw posts from people who must write for comic books because each and every sentence ended with an exclamation point! I looked at a list of my “friends” many of whose names I barely recognized and wondered how I would ever know who a friend of my friend would be, people who, if I remember correctly, would have access to my front page or whatever it is called.

The most important thing was that there were no pictures of me on the page, no pictures of me in my youth being drunk and disorderly, or at some stupid company party making eye contact with a woman’s top, or in close-up with one eyebrow raised and giving the finger to the photographer, knowing they would be cloud mailing the candid directly to facebook the second the picture was captured. With that fear allayed I brought an end to my connection with facebook once and for all and clicked “okay.”

I felt good. No empty feeling. No feeling of pain or embarrassment. No feeling of something missing from my life. No diminishing of contact with the human race. In fact I felt exactly the same way I have for the last three or four years. All things considered that’s a fine way to feel. If friends or even friends of friends are notified that I no longer exist as a facebook entity, so much the better.

By the way, I have gotten at least five e-mails each day since Okay Day from the fine server at facebook inviting me back, encouraging me to come to my senses and log back in to my account before it’s gone forever. Seems I have been afforded two additional weeks to change my mind. I guess they don’t realize they are wasting valuable bits of processor power that could be put to good use posting sentences that end with exclamation points on someone else’s page, perhaps one of the friends of one of my friends.