Internet is Not For Everyone

At an Internet café, you've accidentally stumbled across an unlikely family member's MySpace page. What do you find? How do you deal with it?




Two hazelnut lattes down and I was ready to go. My writing had hit a brick wall so I'd spent the last half hour just browsing the net. As I packed my journal in my bag and consolidated my Splenda packs into the empty styrofoam cup, I decided to check my email before leaving the cafe.

It was the usual; three spam about penis enlargement, two spam about miracle diets, one spam for buy one get one free breast augmentation, a few quick one liner jokes from my aunt, and a reminder from my forgotten MySpace account.

How long had it been since I'd even checked it? It was only about a week after I opened the darn account that I lost interest. Curious, I clicked the link and was redirected to my half finished page. Alicia Keyes blared from the speakers and I quickly turned the volume off. One message on my account. I clicked the envelope icon.

It was from my cousin. Of course. At seventeen I suppose you do only know how to communicate in acronymed sentences on some form of technology. I expected to see some ridiculous Sponge Bob quiz but it took me a minute to translate her message.

omg ... totally ... rotflmao ... check it ... smexy right

I clicked the link almost afraid I was entering some teenage communication blackhole where words were combined or shortened to just letters, and vowels mysteriously forgotten.

But I was wrong. It was worse. Much worse. My eyes were seared with the image of my ninety year old great grandmother. Her wispy white hair curled gently at her jaw. The wrinkles of her face I knew so well. That sweet, precious, little old lady who'd raised six kids, always had a hot meal for visitors, and who never missed a Sunday at church. That was her. That was her wearing a red leather boustier and Chinese monogrammed slippers.

Like I'd just been caught with porn spam, I exited out of the internet altogether and closed my laptop. My heart thundered in my chest and I tried to decide if I should burst into uncontrollable laughter or gouge my eyes out with the wooden stirrer I'd just dropped in my empty cup.