If I were a psychopath

Handy tip: if you are going to condescend to someone in the global community of social media, you might want to check if they live not in Sri Lanka or Paraguay but within ten miles of your house.

I used to check a daily post by author Terry O’Dell. I had a morning routine I loved which concluded with a visit to her Facebook page where she posted a word of the day and followers provided fake definitions. Light-hearted fun until . . . 

I decided to change a word in my comment. I backed my cursor up and in the eyes of any conscientious member of the grammar police committed a capital crime. I failed to convert the “a” before the new word that started with vowel to “an.” I hit the post button and went on with my day.

I don’t usually get comments on that page, so I was interested to see what someone had to say. What he had to say started this way: “Come on people. This page is run by an author. Let’s get our act together.” Then, he went on to explain the rule regarding the use of “a” vs. “an” to me. In detail.

Being condescended to is one of my hot buttons. So, ignoring the unwritten law that you never respond to negative comments, I shot off a snotty retort. What a jerk. Me. Him too, but also me. I referenced my two graduate degrees and the nine (at that time) books I had published and sarcastically asked: “How did I miss learning that?” I could have noted that I used the rule correctly on the next line of the post but I wanted to show some restraint.

He tried to make light of his remark in one or two comments. I was not appeased. I blocked him but before I did, I whiled away the afternoon—there was a pandemic going on—checking out this jerk. I mean gentleman. Let’s be honest, I mean jerk.

I felt elation when I saw his address. I could be on his doorstep in under half an hour. I knew what his house looked like. Thank you, Google Earth and Zillow.

I learned where he worked and in what department. He’d been there many years without a promotion. I discovered the hobbies he enjoyed and the church he joined. I do not know how often he attended but it was there in his sixties he married for the first time. I found the name of the widow he married. She had grown children and I learned a lot about them too.

I became fascinated not by the information I retrieved but by the amount of information I uncovered. And, how easy it  was. 

He and his wife had recently moved so I knew the price of both houses. I expected to find that info. What I did not expect to find was on the realtor’s website, the realtor who had neglected to remove the virtual tour of the couple’s new house. So I checked out the floor plan moving from room to room including the main bedroom where he would sleep never knowing the price he was paying for making that snide remark on Facebook. But, only if I were a psychopath. And, let me state for the record, I am not. (References available upon request.)

I didn’t need to shoot him in his sleep to get satisfaction. I got that when I checked his profile on Linked-In. There in the first paragraph, I spotted the error. Didn’t he know that the rule is use “a” before a consonant and “an” before a vowel? Come on people . . .

© 2024 Jane Kelly