This weekend, I was bored. So I did what any self-respecting adult would do in order to pass the time: I created a fake Facebook account for my mom, and whiled away the hours posting witty commentary that could only come from her (well, allegedly). I even “liked” her favorite things (Say Yes to the Dress, Cheez-It’s, wine), utilized her favorite quotations (“Nobody puts baby in the corner!”), posted family photos from the 1970s, and shared a Barbra Streisand video. Not only that, I made my mom sassy and cool. She was utilizing hashtags and defending Ozzy Osbourne as a better lead singer for Black Sabbath than Ronnie James Dio. Best (worst?) of all, I was having conversations back and forth with myself.
Once I got going, I couldn’t stop. I got so caught up in my own prank, I started to believe it myself. At one point I rushed into the bedroom and breathlessly told Tara, “You should see what my mom just posted on Facebook!” My wife looked at me as though I had lost my marbles.
“You are your mom,” she reminded me.
“How existential,” I replied.
“No, I mean that literally. You’re pretending to be her. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah.”
I knew my mom would find out eventually, so I milked it for all it was worth. I purposely didn’t have her “friend” any of her immediate family members (siblings, grandkids) but when I woke up this morning and checked her account, she had 9 friend requests! My mom’s a popular person, what can I say?
Mid-afternoon Sunday, I got the inevitable email I knew was coming. How can I be on Facebook? my mom wondered. Uh-oh. Yeah, about that, ma…
So it was time to come clean in public.
At which point a friend said You’re going to hell, a sentiment backed up by my aunt, who wrote, I called my sister up wondering why she didn’t accept my friend request, wondering if it was something I said or did. Yeah, straight to hell, Mark.
Whoopsie.
So, that pretty much sums up my weekend: I booked a one-way ticket to Hell. What exciting things did you do?!
In reality, I wasn’t all that bored. Saturday morning we hit the farmer’s market for some fresh produce. Now that it’s June, there are lots of good things to be found, other than asparagus and more asparagus. Like cherries, strawberries, apricots, raspberries, tomatoes, and more. Afterwards, I ended up cleaning the garage, a task we had been putting off since moving in. I even found a couple of things that had been missing since the move including a wine rack and a clock. Now we have a place to store our wine, and a quick glance will tell us not only whether it’s 5:00 somewhere, but if it’s 5:00 here. So we can open said bottles of wine. That, my friends, is the circle of life.
Sunday was a fairly lazy day. Tara went into work, and I actually worked on my long-gestating follow-up novel. I’ll be the first to admit the writing has been slow going, but it’s hard when you write all day for a living, and then write blog posts about all the writing you do. The last thing in the world you want to do is more writing. Last year the wifey and I made a pact: we would devote Sunday mornings to writing. She’d do blog posts, I’d work on my book. Given that her last blog entry was in December and I hadn’t touched the novel since March, you can see how well that plan is working out for us. But one day, I’ll get that book finished. Come hell or high water.
Which, apparently, is a very real concern for me now…
Mark My Words 
Went a little virtual Norman Bates, did ya? Too funny.
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Minus the knife and the dead body, of course.
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Mark, that is freakin’ HILARIOUS! And I give you 5 Gold Stars and standing ovation for your brilliant cleverness! I have a feeling if you and I lived closer, we would be considered The Prankster-Duo From Hell because I love playing pranks too!
Honestly, buddy, that prank you did was pure genius!
LOVE the final photo!
P.S. I’ll meet ya in hell!
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We’d have all of Philly in stitches! Or all of Portland. Depending on where exactly we were neighbors, of course.
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Well I’d say that’s a really clever prank. It’s pretty funny how much you got into it. Maybe you should write a sitcom starring your mom. 🙂
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I actually follow a blogger who wrote (and filmed) a couple of sitcom episodes about her parents! Hey, if Yes, Dear can stay on the air for god-knows-how-many seasons, I’d say my sitcom would at least have a shot!
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I like that idea of a sitcom!
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Hmm. I’ll have to start thinking about who can play you. And dad!
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At least we know you’ll have fun in Hell, Mark…
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Whoa! You need to be careful the FB police don’t take down your real account!
I can see my kids doing something like that for a social media I’m not on, like Instagram or Snapchat. They like to make fun of me for being on Twitter with a fake name (I don’t like to use my actual name on any account).
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Sorry, didn’t mean to reply to previous poster!
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Touche. Although, as I’ve stated, it was all in good fun. I’ll be sure to explain that to Mark Zuckerberg.
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Except for the heat and humidity, of course.
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Haha if my mom wasn’t already on Facebook I would totally do this to her! I don’t think there is anything wrong with what you did. Just a little bit of harmless fun! Maybe this will prompt her to keep the account and actually use it?
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Actually, that’s what I’m afraid of. Once upon a time we tried to get her to join Facebook. Now I’m not so sure that would be a good thing…
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The only way to make this prank better is to set up an account for a dead person and pretend to be him/her for months while finally friending that person’s family.
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Now, that would be a riot! “Guess what? They’ve got social media in the afterlife!” #deadandlovingit
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That would seriously be the best, but you have to try to keep people that know your alter/ego so that there is a long “paper trail.”
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It’s not nice to fool with Mother, Mark! I set up Kelvin’s FB account before he was even aware of it too, but then he just took it over & uses it himself now!
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That only applies to Mother Nature! My mom got a kick out of it. Whew!
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I would never hear the end of it if I did that to my mom.
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…but think of what a great blog post that would make! 😉
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