Friday, July 26, 2019

My Ten Seconds of Fame

by Pa Rock
Slap-Happy Camper

I am officially "retired," which means I could sleep in if I did not have other responsibilities - in lieu of a paying job - waiting for me each morning, but the sad fact is that even though it remains dark outside this morning, like most others, I am up and busy.

Rosie must be let out, the cats fed, the hen house opened for the day, and the blog, my daily grind, has to get written.  Then, when all of that - as well as any accumulated laundry - is finished, I get to the second phase of my day.  That is usually somewhere around noon.

About lunch time, but before I actually sit down to something exotic like a sandwich and chips, I head into town and make a regular daily purchase - a tall cup of unsweet iced-tea, big enough and with enough ice to last me the rest of the day, and a couple of lottery tickets - two different state "drawing" style games.  The total for the purchase, including the tea, is three dollars and twenty-eight cents.  Actually, the tea is a "purchase," and the lottery tickets are an investment.  I still plan on dying rich, and at this stage in my life, the lottery is about thee only means left to that end.

And then, after lunch is finished and the paper plate has been thrown away, I get down to my afternoon schedule.  That is when I roll up my sleeves and go to work at Twitter.  An in-law of mine describes Twitter as a "huge time-sucker," and even that is serious understatement.  Twitter is Alice's rabbit hole writ large, and once a person jumps in, it might take days before they are able to climb back out.

Bit still I persist.

I use Twitter to promote my blog, and I guess it works because some days my readership numbers in the dozens - and I also use Twitter to vent my spleen on things that catch my attention.  Most days I "tweet" about Trump, ad nauseam, though he never "tweets" me back.

I have three goals with Twitter that pull me onward each day.  One is to garner more "followers" than my doofus congressman.  Over the past few months I have worked that goal hard and now am about halfway there.

My second Twitter goal is to be followed by somebody famous.  So far the only name of note that I have among my followers is Nancy "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" Sinatra, Frank's daughter, but she probably shouldn't count because Nancy follows everyone who follows her.   I am just part of her Twitter entourage.

And my final Twitter goal is to be blocked by somebody famous.  A few years ago I was "blocked" by a lady who thought that I had said something unkind about Hillary - and I probably did -  but so far no celebrities have chosen to acknowledge my snide remarks and outright insults toward them by blocking me - and  Walmart, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Jim "Gym" Jordan have had plenty of reason to do so.  I'm being as vile and mean-spirited as I dare, yet they continue to ignore me!

Twitter is perhaps my last chance to achieve a bit of fame in this life.  How sad is that!

But yesterday, as I was sitting at the living room window banging out astute observations and insults on Twitter, fame found me - kinds, sorta.   I happened to look up from the computer just as a small blue-and-white sedan drove past the house on the country lane that runs along side of my property.  According to its signage, it was the Google Maps car!  Now, if I just knew how to access Google Maps, I might be able to come up with an image of my house, and perhaps see myself staring out the front window!

But the best news of the day, the absolute topper, was that as the Google Maps car cruised past, the yard was freshly mowed and all of the weeds in front of the house had been pulled.  My yard will always be freshly mowed and manicured in cyber space!

It just doesn't get better than that!

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