Facebook Needs to Die

So I knew Facebook was a bad idea. I knew it. It's my fault. Obviously it was a bad idea. Both Kira and I left Facebook years ago. Great decision. The interface was so incredibly, horribly awful, we found ourselves getting frustrated at each other just trying to use the godawful service. The app. Whatever it is.

But today, this morning, I'm broken. Figuratively a broken man.

Facebook. Needs. To. Die.

The world would improve. People would be happier. Trust me. Facebook may be the worst piece of whatever it is the world has ever barfed up.

I wanted to cancel the Kira Lorne Facebook account. I wasted an hour. I searched the internet. I asked AI to help. I even asked Mark Zuckerberg's own AI how to cancel an account. Nope. Couldn't do it. Never did get an answer. I found "settings" listed in at least eight different spots in the damaged interface. Clearly Facebook has monkeys generating code for this pile.

So the Kira Facebook page exists. We're not posting there. It may exist forever. But for now we're walking away. You should too. This product is truly awful.

I hope Australia makes a new law banning Facebook for anyone under 65.

Now. For the nice sweet people who came here looking for a romance. I should apologize. I know. Kira wouldn't approve of this post. It's not nice or sweet. No one gets laid.

You know what. You deserve a romance. I'm a writer. I can do this for you.

I present:

"The Unraveling" A Romance Told in One Act not really by Kira Lorne, but could be

Sandra sat in the corner booth. The booth she always chose when things weren't going well. She looked at her coffee. There was a little cream heart on top of the latte. She hadn't sipped it yet. She drew a line through it with her nail, disrupting the heart. It was a fight with her boyfriend that got her here. The kind of fight that just sat. It wasn't probably the biggest fight, but he refused to acknowledge it was his fault. He hurt her. He made her feel small. And thus, the corner booth.

She knew he'd walk in soon and try to.

The door opened. A sweet ding rang out. The cashier girl looked up, started to reach for a menu. He waved her off.

He made eye contact with Sandra. She looked down, taking the plastic spoon and erasing what was left of the cream heart in her latte.

He sat across from her.

"Sandra," he said, in a voice that to her sounded laced with sarcasm. "Honestly, you walked out. You didn't give me a chance to explain."

Sandra looked up, cocked her head. Glared.

He rolled his eyes. "See, you're overreacting. I told you, you could go anytime. If you don't like who I am, you can just go."

Sandra, mmhmm, still working the spoon through the foam, collapsing what remained of the heart. She still hadn't drunk any of it. It was getting colder.

"My stuff is in your place," she said. "What about my stuff."

He looked at her with a tilted head. "Honey. It's technically my stuff now. You gave it..."

She cut him off.

"Facebook." A nickname she gave him, for no particular reason. His real name was Kevin. "I want my stuff out of your apartment. I'm leaving."

Facebook Kevin sighed. "No, I don't think..."

She cut him off.

Sandra leapt like a jaguar, wielding the plastic spoon like a righteous blade of truth. He cringed back in the booth. She was on top of him, coffee flying, the clatter of Worcestershire sauce and salt shakers filling the restaurant.

Sandra stabbed Kevin in the eye, over and over. The spoon broke. She kept slashing. Kevin tried to shield himself, but she was gone, broken, desperate for some sort of resolution to a problem that would never stop until he, it, was dead. She stabbed until the plastic spoon was a nub. She calmly slid off the table, blood soaked, smoothed her skirt, wiped her bloody hands. Kevin made a wheezing, pathetic sound. Muh. Guh. Set...tings. He reached for her.

She calmly walked to the counter, took a plastic spork, walked back, and finished it.

Sandra stood there a moment. The restaurant was very quiet. A Worcestershire sauce bottle rolled off the table and hit the floor. Nobody moved.

The waiter appeared at her elbow. Young. Calm. Holding a fresh latte.

"I made you another one," he said. "The heart was already ruined on the first one."

Sandra looked at him. He did not look alarmed. He looked, if anything, interested.

"You watched all of that," she said.

"Yeah."

"And you made me a latte."

"You looked like you needed one more than you needed anyone to say anything about the other thing."

Sandra blinked. Looked down at the latte. There was a small heart in the foam, perfect, unbroken.

She laughed. It came out wrong, a little jagged, a little too loud for the room. He smiled like that was exactly the right sound.

"I'm Marcus," he said.

"Sandra," she said.

"I know. He said it a lot." He glanced briefly at Kevin, then back at her, unbothered. "You want to sit somewhere that isn't this booth?"

Sandra picked up the latte. Took a sip. It was still warm.

"Yeah," she said. "Okay."

She followed him to a table by the window, where the sun was doing something unreasonably nice with the light, and she thought, not for the first time, that the world was a genuinely strange place.

But sometimes, she supposed, it worked out anyway.

The End

Don't tell Kira. She doesn't read this far into the blog posts. And she's got a little Sandra streak in her, so...