Memory Bank: A Case For Facebook Not Being Just A Massive Timesuck

Out of necessity I've become an excellent online stalker. I'm the one who people come to when they want to profile an ex-or-potential boyfriend/husband, see what an old college rival is up to these days, or find dirt on a snooty mom who snubbed them at school while dropping off kids. I've had to hone my skills because, until recently, there was no Facebook. Now I can retire from virtual PI work and focus my attention wholly on my craft, with short breaks for stalking that Facebook does in my stead.

Facebook was made for people like me who love/need to know what's going on in everyone's lives but are not that keen on actually communicating with people. In Facebook you make initial contact with someone and then sit back and voyeuristically enjoy the ride, peeking in on people's lives whenever you feel the need (read: hourly). What's more, I find Facebook is flooding my subconscious with memories, which are key for a writer. Grade school, high school, college; my own spotty memories get fleshed out with every new friend request and one-inch photo of someone who was, at one time in my life, important to me.

Becasue of a recent Facebook friend request, this morning instead of waking up with the conundrum of bittersweet chocolate vis a vis peppermint ice cream, I woke up thinking about 1987/88, my senior year in college. I'd moved out of the Kappa house and into a rental, dubbed The Kasbah, with friends Pam and Wendy. It was an old house that had been remodeled and it had super-shiny hardwood floors, which we thought was incredibly posh. We named it The Kasbah because of the Clash song—we knew no one would ever come off campus and visit unless they thought a party might break out, so we gave the house a name that engendered the feeling that it could really Rock At Any Moment. Parties never did break out though, because while other girls in other houses were filling garbage cans full of Spodi Punch with 151-proof rum in halter tops and mini skirts, we sat around in our nightgowns—remember the long, nun-like Lanz brand that had what looked like a lace-trimmed bib?—and played How Much, a game that dominated our social lives that year.

How Much was a simple game; one person came up with a rude, crude, or simply unsanitary dare and then the lowest bidder would do the deed. For example, I’d ask How Much to lick the mop after I’ve cleaned the bathroom floor. Wendy would say ten bucks. Pam would say three bucks because she never really grasped the nuances of the game, like underbidding to maximizing her payout; if this were Wendy or me we would have bid nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. So then, I would mop the bathroom floor and she would lick the mop and collect three bucks.

Pam always won at the foul-bordering-on-deadly deeds (things like chewing on raw chicken skin for 25 seconds), Wendy always won at the public humiliation deeds, and I always won when it came to eating large amounts of things that grossed other people out but I secretly liked. Just between you and me, you wouldn’t even have to pay me to eat a whole jar of mayo, but apparently this was gross enough to be valued at around twelve bucks. Ten bucks just to eat a whole cube of cream cheese? Bring it on.

Wendy always slept late; although she was enrolled in the University, you would never know it. Pam and I actually got up, dressed, and made our way to campus everyday, if only for a cup of coffee. Wendy preferred to sleep in, enjoy coffee and breakfast in her robe, and then get down to cross-stitching. She was a Leisure Studies major—there really is such a thing—so she could get away with this most of the time. She wanted to be a stewardess so she could cross-stitch all over the world.

While we had scrapped together real furniture for the living spaces, we lived at ground level in the bedrooms. If you had walked into my room with, say, one of those cones that dogs have to wear after surgery to keep them from licking wounds, and you could only look side to side, you would think the room was empty. I had a mattress on the floor, a wooden box for a nightstand, and milk crates to hold clothes and books. Nothing in the room was taller than two feet. When I sat on my bed it seemed like a rich life. We had hardwood floors, didn’t we?

Thanks for the memories, Facebook. I heart you.