Y’all, quitting Facebook was the BEST thing I EVER did. Now I can give my full attention to connecting with people in person. Try it! You’ll feel so FREE! And if you get UNJUSTLY locked out of your account for switching between your married and maiden names too many times, it won’t hurt so much.
When you’re trying to connect, it helps to have a great conversation starter, like the bumper stickers on my Lexus RX 500. I don’t need a Facebook profile to show my neighbors where we go to church for Christmas; where our beach house is; where the hubby plays golf; where I play tennis, pickleball, and squash; where I go to yoga, pilates, barre class, and spin class; which breeds of rescue dogs we have; where our kids went to college; where our grandkids go to elementary school; which SEC football rivalry makes us shatter crockery and threaten to rewrite the will; and which local charitable organizations we donated to just for the sticker.
It’s true, I was pulled over for having no visibility through the rear window, but that was a great conversation starter, too! Turns out, that police officer moonlights as a security guard at our country club.
By the way, it is important for women to TAKE UP SPACE, and I am proud to set an example by double-parking whenever possible.
Since I’m no longer fixated on my news feed when we go out, I’ve started taking our six rescue dogs with me to the local coffee shop. I love to pay for a coffee for the person in line behind me, or for whoever’s diaper bag the dogs have gotten into, but I think it’s important NOT to tip the baristas. Let’s encourage them to get REAL jobs. Bootstraps, bootstraps, y’all!
Being off of Facebook makes sharing at holidays even more meaningful. We are proud to be THAT Halloween house with the giant yard inflatables and the last twelve-foot skeleton Home Depot had in stock in the entire state. Everyone LOVES it but Cindy, my neighbor, who says the inflatable pumps “sound like 24/7 landscaping services,” and “the power cords are a trip hazard.” Who knew she was so LITIGIOUS?
Luckily my husband is a personal injury lawyer. Yes, it’s his face you’re seeing on the billboards, buses, and benches all over town. No, he’s not wearing mascara in the picture. Whatever. We LOVE Halloween. We give out FULL-SIZED candy bars! Even to toddlers! With business cards for my husband’s personal injury law firm taped to them.
Without holiday Facebook updates, I rely on our annual Christmas card newsletter to share our joys. We are BLESSED with four wonderful children and eleven perfect grandchildren: McKayley, McKenzie, and McCauley; Miley, Riley, and Kylie; Leighton (pronounced LAY-TON), Leighton (pronounced LIE-TON), Leighton (pronounced LEE-TON), Hunter, and Moose. Getting the crew together for a portrait in matching monogrammed shirts is quite the logistical circus. We usually have to Photoshop Moose in, but it's worth it. To make sure no one misses out, we also send the newsletter to my 2,500 former Facebook friends via email. According to Janet, Cindy posted it on some website called a “sub-read-it” with the names redacted.
She is DEAD to me.
Whew! Sorry, I got worked up there. Let me take a sip from this forty-ounce Yeti tumbler. It takes FIVE Keurig cups to fill this thing. I need two hands to hold it, and it doesn’t fit in a cup holder. Driving with my knees all the time is a pain in the ass, but I’ll be damned if anything comes between me and my coffee!
ANYWAY. Now that I’m no longer using Facebook for activism, I have to seek out strangers for important conversations. Like at Costco, it is my GOD GIVEN DUTY to find new mothers and explain why ANYTHING other than exclusive breastfeeding is a crime against children. It’s also IMPERATIVE to explain to fat people how positive thinking and a regimen of tennis, pickleball, squash, yoga, pilates, barre class, spin class, walking six rescue dogs, and drinking eighty ounces of coffee a day could transform their lives.
Perhaps the BEST thing about being off Facebook is how it’s increased my awareness. Not just my self-awareness—I always felt like a good person; now I KNOW I am—but my spacial awareness. I’m tuned into my surroundings. Not like Norman, the endocrinologist who gets my daughters their Ozempic: He walked right into traffic while texting and was MOWN down by a Lexus. Cindy says “it had stickers all over it,” but what does she know? Poor Norman won’t be able to play pickleball for SIX MONTHS!
What’s that? You mean I could just set up a new account?
Would you excuse me for a moment?