It’s
not often that I write a blog post. But every now and then something
happens that I think ought to be shared and this is one of those
occasions.
Three
evenings ago my husband Peter, and I had eaten and settled down for a
night of comedy on the goggle-box. A little while into the jollity,
my phone buzzed to tell me that someone had sent me a message on
Facebook. My tablet was on the coffee table so, intrigued I went to
look. The message was from someone I barely know. She and I are –
or rather were – Facebook
“friends”. A couple of years back I started a project, which some
of you will remember, to produce an anthology of short stories based
on a theme. The entries were wildly varying in quality but almost
nothing was turned down given that I was not
intending to showcase literary genius but, rather, to demonstrate
the wonderful ways in which the human brain can demonstrate vivid
imagination. The book was
sold entirely for charity and was a great success. My “friend”,
let’s call her Hazel (not her real name) but apt since she turned
out to be a complete nut, wrote one of the stories in that
collection.
Hazel’s
Facebook message
to me began with a question. Why had my publisher – who is now
producing a similar anthology of his own, also for charity – told
her that a story she wrote for him had been accepted but it
hadn’t been published in
the book which is now for sale. I realised straight away what had
happened as I had volunteered my services as an editor on the book.
There had been a dreadful computing error just weeks before
publication and some data was lost. Graeme, my publisher, worked very
hard to recover it all and thought he had but, unknown to us, this
one had slipped through the net. I apologised to her and explained
about the error. I also said that if she could send me her story I
would ask whether it might be possible to produce an updated version
of the book with her story included.
What
followed was an evening of vitriolic and sustained abuse by Hazel who
came up with some amazing accusations, once again proving that human
imagination is a miraculous thing. She said that I, together with
another contributor to my earlier anthology, had conspired to
blacken her name thereby persuading my publisher not to include her
story. That was followed by another
piece of pure fiction to the effect that we had also purposely left
one individual’s name off the author list even though she had
written one of the stories. Are you, dear reader,
asking yourself why we would do that? I did, briefly, but couldn’t
come up with a sensible answer.
Now, the person she cited in that particular slur
happens to be a personal friend of mine and I know that she did not,
in fact, write a piece for the book. I gently pointed that out to
Hazel who then came back with a weird list of people (including said
friend of mine and others I’d never heard of but whom, she assured
me, were all famous) who would verify, if I contacted them, that she
is not a child and is “legit”. Don’t ask – I have no idea.
It
got even more bizarre. She told
me that she was the former girlfriend of some man I’d never heard
of. I thought maybe she was messaging more than one person at the
same time and that this part of the message wasn’t intended for me.
I pointed it out. The reply that came back was to the effect that the
message was meant for
me and that her ex-boyfriend had now been released. Are you
getting confused? I was, and had to think about it.
Ah! Perhaps it was intended to be a threat. Bless her. She can’t
even make a threat with any degree of plausibility.
Next
came a real doozy. She knew for a fact that we had something against
her because not a single person from her State (I won’t tell you
which one) had a story included in the new
book. I thought fleetingly of asking her how she could possibly know
that. But I abandoned that idea. I mean it would be a pointless waste
of time and energy to ask a complete idiot a question that required a
logical and believable answer. It would be akin
to asking
Donald Trump why he believes himself to be a decent human being. He
would undoubtedly give you a shedload of reasons but you’d have to be as
stupid as he is to give them any credence.
Now,
I really wouldn’t like any of you to run away with the idea that
any of this upset me, or angered me, or made me feel nervous. In fact
it was the funniest thing I’ve experienced in a long time – far
more humorous than anything on TV that night. No – indeed this kind
of thing is exactly why I love the internet and social media. I mean
you get to meet people and to experience all kinds of things that
would never cross your path in the real world. And this is a perfect
example. No one in real life would ever hurl abuse at me in
that way – I’m no way
near interesting enough for that.
I
have now, you won’t be at all surprised to hear, unfriended and
blocked “Hazel”. I’m almost sorry though – I might be
missing out on some valuable blog material. Anyone else like to throw
some stuff my way?
