Chaiming In

October 23, 2008 | Comments (0) | by Chaim Witz

-Facebook, you son of a bitch. I'm really torn. My wife has it, as do a few of my friends. But in my experience there are two unwavering qualifications for being a child molester. The first being that you still use a Hotmail account as your primary email address. The second being that you're 30 years or older and have a Facebook/MySpace page.

So therein lies the quandary. The other day I decided to dabble. Logged on to Facebook.com. Stared at the screen for a while. Felt dirty and did a lap around the apartment. Stood in the doorway, breathing heavily while Facebook mocked me. Looking around to make sure no one was watching, I sat back down and signed up for an account. That was easy. Just an email address (not Hotmail) and a password. No pictures required. I have nudes if necessary.

I enter my high school and college info and complete my registration. Up pop a bunch of former classmates. The proverbial blasts from the past from high school that I haven't seen in 12 years. Good God, this is great! I'm looking at former classmates, mocking them. This is funny. But wait, I can't accesses their pages. No! I need more. I can't stop here. Their small profile pictures did nothing but wet my appetite. But they have to add me as a 'friend' for me to see their actual page.

This poses a problem.

The whole point of this is so that I can gain accesses for former classmates and acquaintances and revel in their mundane details of their lives. I want to see who got fat, who is gay, who still lives with their mothers, the percentage of male classmates that have goatees...I need to know this shit. It will make me feel so much better about my life. You see, I was a bit of an outcast in high school. I grew a mullet. I wore a pre-reunion KISS jacket. I was painfully shy. I wasn't a nerd, I wasn't a jock, I wasn't a brain. I just sort of existed. Quietly.

Now all of these old insecurities come flooding back. They have to 'add' me as a friend? But what if they don't want to be my friend? They don't know the suave, cosmopolitan and devilishly handsome Chaim Witz. They know the quiet weirdo. Fuck.

Do I really need the acceptance of people that I hated 12 years ago? Maybe. I do know that I want to read their Facebook pages though. I want to see if they're still assholes. Maybe some of them are cool now. And college buddies....I was much cooler in college. Maybe I can reconnect with some of those dudes. Will they remember who I am though? Facebook, you motherfucker. I can't quit you, but I don't know where to start.

-Poor Man's War Criminal: Undecided voters less than 2 weeks out. Really? I mean, really? These past two years haven't given you enough information to make a decision? You do realize that the debates are over, so your chances of securing one of those coveted 'focus group' spots and the snazzy dials that go along with it are kaput right? Ok, so maybe you don't follow politics as much as Joe Blow, nay Joe the Plumber, but come on! The candidates could not be more different. It's time to shit or get off the pot.

Perhaps these are voters that want to vote for Obama, but still aren't totally comfortable going against the status quo and voting for a candidate who doesn't fit the 'old, white, safe' mold. Perhaps these voters don't like either candidate and are trying to decide between the perceived 'lesser of two evils'. Perhaps they are decided, but just want to help sway the polls for their candidate of choice. Whatever the case, it's time for the Undecideds to sack up and stick their flag in ground.

I turn the floor over to humorist David Sedaris, who said this in his piece about the Undecideds in the New Yorker (elitist!):


I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

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