Somewhere along the way, I found the internet. I think it was the year two-thousand and seven. And by ‘found’, I mean, I stumbled upon a local forum called My Hattiesburg. It was great. Soon, I had tons of internet friends. We laughed, talked about current events, talked about our families, shared recipes, got advice when we needed it, gave advice when it was necessary, too. Those internet folks soon became my family…even though I had never met any of them. In fact, I didn’t even know their real names---only their internet screen names. Scarlet O’Hara, Old Lady, City Girl, Luvnlife, Pepper, Katzeyes and the list went on and on. To me, those were their real names. Every day and all day long, I could not wait to see who said what next. Life was great…and then, it happened. Someone hurt my feelings. Wait. What? Huh? Turns out not everyone thinks and believes the same way I do. Talk about an eye-opening experience. I had no idea. Cue the Godfather’s theme. I will never forget the look on my husband’s face when I marched into the living room and calmly asked to borrow his truck. “Listen…me and the girls are gonna have to take someone down this afternoon. I need to borrow the truck. And I’m gonna need a big roll of plastic, too. Can you make that happen by five-thirty today?” Needless to say, I got the speech of a lifetime. You know the one---Step away from the keyboard. Killing is illegal, everyone does not have to agree with you, etc, etc, etc. Although now I am certainly thankful that I did not execute my plan to rid the internets of idiots, I will say if I had, they would still be looking for a few bodies. Anyway, I say all that to say this. The internet can be a good thing—fundraisers, prayer groups, keeping in touch with friends and family, and the list of good things goes on and on. And now thanks to modern social media, most of those forum friends are now my Facebook friends, too. And as before, every day I cannot wait to see who says what next. Who is getting married? Who is expecting babies? Who is having a birthday? Speaking of birthdays, this past weekend we hosted an epic one. Epic---the word the mother of the birthday boy used to describe the event. And by we, I mean, my husband, my cousin Cindy, and that man she married. The birthday boy in question was none other than a son of one of those internet forum friends from years ago. Thanks to Facebook pictures, I was there when Charlie was born. I was there when Charlie started walking. And there when Charlie went to Kindergarten. And even when Charlie got a little baby brother. In fact, my husband and I call those two boys our internet grandkids because we have watched them grow up. Yes sir, we wanted to make birthday number six, one to remember. There would be chickens, goats, ducks, dogs, cats, horses, cows, pigs, sheep, llamas, alpacas, turkeys, and peacocks. We even threw a zebra and a camel in the mix, too. As with any event there were a few bumps behind the scenes like: “I’m headed to Wiggins to get a new harness,” said my cousin in a panic. Little Man, one of the miniature horses must have had a growing spurt. Not to be out-done by her flying trip down highway 49 to get to the feed store that was closing in fifteen minutes, I was in near meltdown status myself. “OMG! The cake is too small. Pull over Chris, I don’t think they gave me enough cupcakes.” Yes, that was my big behind crawling over the front seat to count the mini cupcakes…My apologies to everyone on Hardy Street that witnessed that horrific scene. Before I got another cake picked-up my cousin was calling again, “I’m headed to Lumberton…the new harness from Wiggins won’t fit this horse either.” By this time, I am thinking, “Just how big is that horse now and what have they been feeding him?” And if you happened to see a grey SUV swerving through town, that was us, too. “Get outta my way! I’ve got a birthday party to get to.” Apparently everybody in Hattiesburg was in town and driving in front of my car. I could not let little Charlie down and if I had to start bumping a few cars off the road, I would. Seven stops later, and we were headed down to Carnes. If you could have seen the smiles on those kids faces—worth it all. Now don’t get me wrong, there is nothing bad about having IPods and IPads and car DVRs and all things electronic but if you could have seen the excitement in those faces at the joy of feeding the animals, and running through the fields you would never buy another Gameboy or video game again. You’d be buying chickens and mini-horses. I remember back in the day when the latest invention was the 8-track player. Shoot, we didn’t have TV’s in our car. We had a game called ‘that’s your house and that’s your car’. Since there was three of us kids as we were headed down any highway every third house we passed was mind. Oh the joy when I got a fancy one. We could play that game for hours….at least until the baby sister got an old dilapidated one. Then it was twenty minutes of us convincing Terri that she had to take the ugly house. Followed by thirty or so minutes of us pouting when Momma made us stop playing because Terri was throwing things in the car. To all you young parents out there, ditch the electronics, buy a chicken and teach your kids that every so poplar game from my generation called ‘That’s your house’. Play along with them. And if you are raising a ‘Lil Terri’ of your own, make sure your car is void of anything that will give you a concussion…just saying.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 15:37:09 +0000
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