It’s been tough finding truly gratifying/rewarding moments in social media these days. So much horrible news – some of it true (LOL) is being reported daily, so many negative comments, so many angry/frustrated folks. Which I totally get…it is a global catastrophe, after all!

Rewind to yesterday, and my little shining moment of amusement was being the “winner” of a contest for which there was no real prize. It was one of those silly “survey” things people have been posting a lot of lately because they’re shut in – and bored. One of my FB friends posted a “pick the fake job” survey and I was the winner! Keep in mind, the person who posted this isn’t someone I know very well personally. She’s not a real “friend,” just someone I’d met because she and her husband previously owned a couple of businesses in the area and have since moved overseas.

Here’s a list of the job she said she’d had in her lifetime:

• Silk screener in a tee shirt factory
• Receptionist/file clerk for an insurance salesman
• Computer programmer for Blue Cross and Blue Shield
• Gas station attendant
• Yoga Teacher
• Shift worker at a factory
• Waitress
• Camp counselor
• Dog Walker
• Traveling carny making and selling Italian sausage sandwiches at summer fairs
• Backup singer
• Soft serve slinger at Dairy Queen
• Brewery owner

I was one of dozens of folks commenting on her post. Many of the people were folks who SHOULD have known the correct answer (parents, family members, close friends, etc.). Yet I got a notification several hours later saying “ding ding ding…you win!” And she wanted to know HOW I knew the correct answer (which was “camp counselor,” by the way). So I said:

You don’t exactly seem like a “kids” person. Takes one to know one?

She was amused by my response! And she said that yes, that was true – adding that being “anti-kid” is not exactly a popular opinion these days. We chatted a bit, I said I wasn’t exactly a huge fan of kids either – but was more in dislike of lackadaisical/irresponsible parenting than kids themselves. I also said that if I got into parenting, I’d likely be one of those absent-minded overwhelmed moms who would leave the kid in a carrier on top of the car – and drive off with it still there (I’m actually tall enough to pull this off).

Flashback to several years ago, I actually had a few Messenger conversations with her about some problems there were with children in one of the local bars she owned (particularly on trivia nights – there were kids running around the room unsupervised, etc. and other players asked me to complain on their behalf).  Through those conversations, I got the “vibe” that she essentially had zero tolerance for that shit. Though her first thought was to ban people from bringing small children to trivia nights, talks with her staff caused her to tone it down – and just ask that parents simply keep their kids under lock and key while trivia was going on.  It worked…

Yes, there has been some strange bonding that has been going on with all of the “lockdowns” going on around the world. There I was having a conversation with a woman I barely know whom is surviving a country-wide lockdown…in India – while I was sitting in a recliner in my living room – in the United States.

This was almost as fun as telling my husband’s former college roommate that my husband was singing They Might Be Giants songs at the top of his lungs while we played board games! He also reminisced about his college days with his old roommate… #youhadtobethere