Do Not Pass GO. Do Not Collect $200

Gentle Readers, I confess to you with a heavy heart that I am writing to you from the depths of depravity, otherwise known as Facebook Jail. Not only that, but I was convicted TWICE in the space of a single week. If you want to disown me, I’ll understand. But I hope you will sit down beside me and hear my sad story. 

1. As God is My Witness, I’ll Never Steal My Mother’s Curtains Again!

It started innocently enough on a weekend, June 29^th to be exact. Some wag among my acquaintances, probably those jokers in the Unitarian Universalist Hysterical Society, posted the picture of Carol Burnett done up as Scarlett O’Hara in the green velvet curtains with the drapery rod still installed. Or as Hattie McDaniel referred to them, “Miss Ellen’s Portieres.” The challenge, should we decide to accept it, was to submit a caption for evaluation by the other members of the group. (I must state here in all fairness that it could have been those genuflecting Episcopalians in the High Church Coyote group. I am too distraught to remember.)

Either way, I thought it would be a hoot to enter. If you look at Carol/Scarlett’s face, she looks pretty disgusted. I was inspired. I decided it ought to be a caption about tightly laced corsets. There it was, flowing effortlessly from my keyboard: “As God is my witness, if I don’t get out of this corset soon, I’m gonna kill somebody.”

Sadly, no one ever got to tell me how clever I am. My reply disappeared before my eyes, kind of like snow in the gutters of Baltimore. Soon my inbox got the little red tick that signals someone has posted something of interest. What could it be? 

2. It’s been the ruin of many a poor girl. And me, O Lawd, was one.

My inbox held a communique from the Star Chamber, otherwise known as the faceless face of Facebook Enforcement. My innocent post had been found to be threatening, potentially harmful, and advocating violence. My punishment was interesting. I wasn’t banned from posting outright, the way some acquaintances have been. I could post all I wanted to. I was forbidden to join any groups, and I was forbidden to post in any groups or pages I followed. These punishments went away after a few days. 

What was interesting was that they extended the punishment to my author page. I was forbidden—strictly prevented—from purchasing or running any ads. When I saw that, I just snorted. 

3.      I Become a Habitual Criminal

Dang! I should have seen it coming. Only a few days later, the infamous Presidential debate took place. It became clear that one guy had not done too well. The other guy had simply outflapped him. It was . . . well, the subject of much discussion and opinionating. People wanted to talk about it. I was one of them. As we got further and further into it, a point occurred to me. This doesn’t happen too often, so I grabbed the point and went for broke. I simply pointed out that the historically bad person of the Twentieth Century, the one with no redeeming features at all, the one we fought a world war to get rid of—that person was an excellent speechmaker and orator. Top notch. A real rabble-rouser. You’ll shortly find out why I’m a little twitchy about mentioning his name, but you’d surely recognize it. 

4. Everybody in the old cell block . . . Dancin’ to the Jailhouse Rock!

And yes, the reply disappeared, and yes, the accusatory note appeared in my inbox The comment was removed because it glorified violence. Whoever (or whatever) was doing the censoring did not understand much. They (or it) were devoid of understanding U.S. history, the Civil war, or U.S. popular culture. (Gone with the Wind is one of the top-rated films of all kinds despite its really unsavory attitudes towards slavery.) They had totally missed the point of my Scarlett O’Hara wisecrack. They (or it) were also completely confused about world history of the 20^th Century, admittedly a large topic. The point that one should beware of silver-tongued orators like Hitler just buzzed right past them into oblivion. Good job, Meta—or whoever you are this week.

I fumed. I fulminated. I ranted. But there was no appeal. And the story gets worse. In fact, it gets so much worse that I’m going to post the rest of it next month; it’s also long, but hopefully not tedious. To Be Continued