Well, if that doesn't do the trick!

Thursday 8/3/23

I saw this photo on Facebook of a woman I'm friends with--in the social media capacity, that is--on a beach in a bathing suit. She's maybe forty, I'd guess. Looked very fit.

I clicked on the comments. I click on the comments for a lot of things. You'll see, for instance, how pretty much no one can comprehend what they just read, regardless of how simple it was. People are responding to what the initial post said, so you can observe in real time that none of the people commenting understood the statement they're replying to. American adults reads at a fourth grade level on average, which is no surprise at all if you ever read what is to be found in comments sections, even for the shortest initial posts that contain a single basic subject-verb sentence of four words.

I don't check the comment section with photos as much--because what is anyone going to say?--but I did this time.

First comment was from a guy who wrote, "You have the body of a eighteen year old girl."

What would possess you to write this? And you can't even get the "an" correct? How is that the first and only place you go? And it's right out there for all to see. No shame.

Then I click on the guy's profile. Do guys like this ever have chins? Did they ever?

Everything on his page was either a photo of his jowly mug or of his two boys playing football. Probably safe to assume that this isn't a parent with any grave concerns about CTE.

He completed his comment with a thumbs up and a winking emoji. As if you had any doubt.

I'm reminded of a friend whose wife got a text from a neighbor. And that text read, "Why don't you cum over?"

My friend said up until then it was just a regular meathead neighbor. Then he did his text with his word play--look out Jimmy Joyce!--and followed it up with a "lol."

That's super. How could you possibly go wrong with that two-pronged approach? If only Casanova had had an iPhone and a Drizly account.

Someone asked me if I believed there was life "out there." In the other worlds or alien races sense. I'm not sure that there's really much life here.