I love the internet for so many reasons…
I love it because it enables me to have Facebook, and I’ve reconnected with so many people I thought would only remain part of my past.
I love it because it makes my work so much easier. When I’m finished with an article or essay, I can simply send it right to my editor. Poof! It’s gone. And 99 44/100% of the time, it arrives in seconds to its destination.
I love it because it opens up new worlds to me, and I learn so many new things on a daily basis.
But I hate it because it adds to my neuroses.
Um, not that I was neurotic about anything before the internet came about. No, not me.
Okay, I did worry about stuff from time to time.
But with the internet and, while we’re at it, the expanse of the WORLD WIDE WEB (see how enormous and overwhelming that sounds?), I can have lots to freak out about anytime I want to.
For example, before the internet, I would usually get my news in a few ways: mostly the newspaper, but also television and radio. So I couldn’t possibly hear about every single thing that happened across the entire globe.
And life was good.
Now, though, if Princess Kate gets a hangnail, it will make front-page internet news! I will then be able to read what 6,472 hangnail experts think about the supposed hangnail, and then we can get illustrations and charts and even video showing everything you ever wanted to know about a hangnail.
And a whole lot that you didn’t.
For example, if there’s an outbreak of bed bugs in the Baltimore area, well, I’d want to know about it—provided it could actually affect me.
Problem is, whether it can affect me or not isn’t the issue. It’s BED BUGS: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW!!! (Insert scary music here!)
In the blink of an eye, in a moment’s notice, and [insert another cliché here {and, yes, I did write this as part of the column; you’re not seeing a mistake}], bed bugs are everywhere.
At least on the internet…
In no time, you will find out the history of the bed bug, 3-D views of the bug, its habitat, what it likes, what it hates, the first time it ever appeared mentioned in print—usually from some case in the 1800s when a man gasped, “Bed Bugs—they doth itcheth. Oh me, oh my, I ameth coveredeth in themeth. Foresooth!” before he grabbed his chest and died…
And now they’re coming for you…
Then, the next time I get into bed, exhausted from the day, I’ll only remember one snippet, one teeny tiny snippet from this mass news story—just as I see a little speck on my sheet.
“Ack!” I would scream as I jumped up and then began to shake the sheets.
“Um, what are you doing?” my decidedly Type B husband would ask.
“We’ve got bed bugs!!!” I’d gasp. Oh me, oh my!
“Nope,” he’d say as he looked closely, and then brushed it away. “It’s just dirt.”
He would then lie down and go to sleep in about 20 seconds.
I, however, would lie there wondering if the speck of dirt could be spreading a virus. Then I might look down and realize that I have a hangnail. Oh no! What did they say about hangnails earlier? Could the hangnail be carrying a bed bug virus?
Perhaps I should just go read a book…
Michele Wojciechowski, who is doing everything in her power not to read about the latest story about the end of the world in 2012 (Dom! Dom! Daaaa!!!), writes “Wojo’s World™” from Baltimore.