Stand Up, Twitter Captives!

OK. Here it is: I hate Twitter.

Or shall I say, I hate all the sitting Twitter requires. Not to mention how much I resent the sitting required by Blogger, Facebook, Linked In, my four e-mail accounts, and all the websites I visit many times each day in order to keep my finger on the pulse.

It's exhausting, all this sitting, and I simply cannot take it anymore. (Not to mention that despite all the sitting, my finger has never actually found the pulse.)


But to be perfectly honest, it's not just the sitting that's gotten my knickers in a twist (though too much sitting often has this effect).

It's the self-centeredness of it all.

"Ruth just used her son's toothbrush. Again."
"Ruth can't stop watching a video featuring cats on a treadmill."
"Ruth thinks you oughta check out this link pronto!"

Does anyone really care? And what's the use? How do my personal "tweets" or Facebook "status updates" make the world a better place?

So what if "Ruth picks up the equivalent of her weight in dog poop every three months" or "Ruth likes cheese"?

Ruth already knows these things, so what's the motivation to share them with the world (or, at least, with people she hasn't spoken to since the 7th grade)?

Are we nothing but a community of “Who’s” crying out in desperation, “We are here! We are here! We are here! We are HERE!”

Or, like flashers on a street corner, do we get some sort of secret thrill by offering up cheap peaks into our inner worlds?

“Ruth thinks it’s a little of both.” And incidentally, "Ruth is wearing nothing but her Snuggie."

Conjuring up 140 characters of relevant, insightful, witty, or just plain goofy information to “tweet” feels like, to me, an exercise in vanity. With each twitty tweet or static update, we are essentially declaring the equivalent of, “Pay attention to me.”

Then again, if our fingers are truly on the pulse – which means our asses are constantly on chairs – we might actually have something valuable to share. Some breaking news, in fact.

“Ruth just learned that social networking is an evil plot to cripple the human race with fat asses!”
"Ruth heard that Twitter is changing its name to Sitter."
"Ruth wants you to know that help is on the way."


And not a minute too soon.

Good Old Fashioned Family Violence

I had no idea the Nintendo Wii was an Al Qaeda training device, but I learned the hard way at the hands of my very own son.

First he kicked, strangled, punched, and shot my monkey (I was the monkey) while I fumbled with the "Nunchuk" and remote.


"Push 'A' to kick and 'B' to strangle," he said while kicking my revived monkey off a tree branch and laughing as it fell.

Next we "played" an army game involving tanks in which my son and other rogue tanks repeatedly blew me up.


"Do I press 'C' to deploy the nuclear weapon?" I wondered.

When I huffed in frustration, my son said, "Don't worry, mom. This time we're on the same team. I'm the blue tank and you're the red tank."

Then, laughing, he aimed his blue gun at my red tank and blew me up again.

"Kids like violence, mom," my daughter explained as I expressed my shock and horror at the nature of these games.

"Yeah, mom. Violence is good for kids," my son added.

I didn't know how to respond in the face of such ruthless little chips off the ol' block, but then it occurred to me: it was time for a spanking.

"Wii tennis, anyone?"

Trash Talk: No, You're Not Recycling

Remember that Alanis Morissette song, "Isn't it Ironic?" where she sings about the irony of having a black fly in her Chardonnay (which, ironically enough, isn't ironic at all)?

I have a new line for her.

Isn't it ironic
that every day people in office buildings and schools (and god knows where else)
dutifully fill their plastic recycling bins with white copy paper and aluminum cans,
and every night
these recycling bins get dumped in the trash?

Now that's irony - in the "hypocrisy, deception, and feigned ignorance" sense of the word.

It's also true. (Believe me, I'd much rather have a black fly in my Chardonnay.)

You see, we think we're recycling. We think we're doing the right thing - and we are.

And yet, at the end of our busy school and work days, after hours of "teaching green" and filling up our handy blue and gray recycling bins, the janitorial staff "cleans up" by emptying all the "trash" into the same garbage can. (Don't believe me? Stay late at your office or school tonight and watch what happens.)

By the time we return to school or work the next day, reusable green bags and ceramic coffee mugs in hand, yesterday's recyclables are already piled high at the local landfill.

And we have no idea.

It's a dirty little charade, this myth we call "recycling" - at our workplaces, anyway. But who's to blame? Do we point the finger at cleaning crews for their ignorance and/or laziness? Do we lambaste building management teams for turning a blind eye just to save a few bucks? Or do we blame government officials for not enforcing recycling requirements that have been in place for more than a decade?

Maybe this is a job for Chris Hansen at Dateline NBC. Maybe a show called, "To catch a Non-Recycler"?

I don't know, people. I just don't know.

Good Intentions: Mutha of the Year

My daughter and Roger Federer had something in common last weekend: uncontrollable hysterics.

But unlike Roger Federer's display of unbridled emotion upon losing to Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open final - a final that would have netted him 14 Grand Slam titles to equal the record of tennis great Pete Sampras - my daughter's unraveling was completely my fault.

Naturally.

"Take it!" I had yelled from the sidelines in the midst of her 3rd & 4th grade league basketball game.

The girl my daughter was guarding had stopped dribbling the ball and held it tenuously in her hands, barely gripping it in the way one might hold a half-rotted jack-o-lantern, wishing it wasn't quite so mushy.

Without thinking too much (which, incidentally, is one of my greatest skills), I blurted out, "Take it!" with gusto and enthusiasm. And guess what? That's exactly what she did. In an instant, the blink of an eye, my daughter reached forward and boldly and decisively snatched the ball from her opponent. And when she did, the entire crowd of adoring parents and grandparents - but mostly a very loud and surprised me - laughed out loud.

Bwaaaahhaaaa.

I couldn't help it. I think I was in shock. Parents of nine and three-quarter-year-olds might be able to relate, because nine and three-quarter-year-olds are almost always completely deaf to their parents. Believe me, I could jump up and down in front of my daughter wearing nothing but a Jonas Brothers t-shirt, screaming, "Do you want ice-cream? Chocolate? Trip to Disney World?" and she would not even bat an eyelash.

But this time, after miraculously hearing and heeding my bad advice to "Take it!" my daughter was stopped dead in her tracks not only by the laughter of the crowd [read: her mother's cackling] but by the referee's whistle. Tweeet!

"You're not allowed to grab the ball like that," he had said matter-of-factly, the same way a produce department employee might say, "We're all out of asparagus."

Of course, I didn't even hear the referee because I was too busy laughing and chit-chatting with the grandma next to me about how I needed to be gagged during games like this. She agreed, and we laughed and laughed.

My laughing and chit-chatting were interrupted when my daughter suddenly beelined off the court and buried her face in my chest, sobbing.

She was utterly mortified - embarrassed and wishing she could be anywhere else in the world but in the painful spotlight of the basketball court.

"You can't just go in the locker room and take a cold shower, take it easy - you're stuck out there. It's rough."

I know, Roger. I know.

But at least it's not your mother's fault.