By Kathy Miele
I walked into my son Alex’s room and saw that he was on his computer. “Can I ask you for a favor?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said, never taking his eyes off his computer screen. “What is it?”
“You know I’ve been saying for years that I’d never go on Facebook?” I began gathering dirty glasses and dishes that were stacked on his desk from the night before.
“Yeah?” he looked at me skeptically.
“Well, I’ve changed my mind,” I stated a bit sheepishly.
Alex closed his laptop and looked directly at me. “Why would you want to go on it now?”
“Because so many of my friends are on it and I feel like I’m missing out,” I explained.
Alex looked at me for a minute. “If that’s what you want to do, go ahead,” he said but I could hear in his voice that he wasn’t thrilled about the whole idea.
“Thanks,” I laughed. “But your permission wasn’t the favor I was looking for.”
“What’s the favor then?”
“I need your help putting my profile together,” I said. “You know how computer challenged I am!”
Alex groaned.
“Please!” I cried.
“Fine,” he said as he got up to go to my computer.
I quickly put his dirty dishes down and followed him into my room. “You’re going to do it for me now?” I asked.
“We might as well get this over with.” He sighed as he sat down at my desk.
I quickly took out a few pictures I’d tucked into my pocket. “Can you put this one in for my profile picture?” I handed him the first one. “I just need you to crop out the other person in the photo.”
He took a quick look. “Sure I can do that.”
“Great!” I handed him the next picture. “Can you also put this family photo of us in, too?”
Alex looked at the photo of the four of us on our front porch. “Don’t tag me in this.” he said.
“Are you serious?” I had to laugh. “I’m asking you to put the whole thing together for me. Do you really think I have any idea how to tag a picture?”
Alex shrugged his shoulders. “You have a point there.”
Over the next 20 minutes he asked me questions about how I wanted my profile to look. Once he had my pictures in place he pushed himself back from my desk. “You’re all set,” he said as he headed for his own room. “By the way,” he called over his shoulder. “Don’t friend me!”
“Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m serious.”
“But all my friends have their kids as friends,” I whined.
Alex stopped in the hallway and looked back at me. “So you’re telling me that if all your friends jumped off a bridge you’d have to too?”
I was speechless! I suddenly realized that one of my old sayings that I’d used on both my boys had come back to haunt me! Now I was the one who felt like a little kid.
“I didn’t think so.” Alex said as he smiled and headed back to his room.
