Preserving My Dignity (Baby Face Bloghop)

Believe it or not, this post is my attempt at preserving my dignity.

My mother recently gave me the old family photo album.  The problem, you see, was she did so in the presence of my daughter.  My daughter was beyond elated.  Contained within those stiff, aged pages were photographs of her father, several of which were perfect ammunition for blackmail.

"Oh, these are going online," she said, and followed it with a frighteningly nefarious giggle.  Where would they end up?  Facebook?  Google+?  Twitter?  All of the above and then some?  She's a crafty little thing and may even be capable of hacking my blog and humiliating me in my own little corner of cyberspace.

So I did what any self-respecting man my age would do.  I grabbed the least damaging photograph of my younger self that I could find, scanned it into the computer and at the last minute, signed up for the Baby Face Bloghop that Trisha from Word + Stuff was hosting.

When you're cool, you just know it.

So here it is.  This photograph of my hip little self was taken around 1965 while living in Hawaii. Mom had a thing for hats and bow-ties.  And I mean she had it bad.  I strutted through my entire preadolescence like this.  I still carry the emotional scars.  Mom still thinks it's cute.  Those scars run deep.

But at least now I shouldn't have to worry about my daughter posting those really embarrassing baby pictures of mine anywhere.  At least, that's the hope.

And the Birdie Says...

My daughter can take it no longer.  "You've got to get on Twitter, Dad!"

"But I don't know what to tweet," I answer.  "That is the right word, isn't it?"

"Yes, Dad.  You tweet things."

"What things?"

"Anything!"

"Like a Facebook status update?  I know how to do that!"

Sighs from your children are never good.  And I know what this one means. It means Dad, you can be so dumb sometimes.  She'd never say that aloud, of course.  But she does still make fun of my flip-phone.

"Well, I guess if Rockin' Robin can go tweet, tweet, tweet, I can too.  How do I do it?"

"You set up an account."

"Okay.  I've set up accounts before.  Can't be that tough.  Where?"

Her brows rise.  "Seriously?"

I flash her the puppy dog eyes so she won't scold me in front of my grandchildren.  "Twitter.com?"  She gives me a slow nod.  I avoid her stare, bring up Firefox and start singing.  "All the little birds on Twitter Street, like to hear the Paw Paw go tweet tweet tweet."  My grandkids give their mom that Is Grandpa okay? look.  I make a face at them and sing louder.  "Rockin' Paw Paw, tweet tweet.  Rockin' Paw Paw, tweet tweet."

"Please, Dad.  You're scaring the kids.  You're a writer, not a singer.  Stick to what you can do, okay?"

So I took the plunge.  During the course of getting everything set up and configured, I learned things, things like "Skip this step" really does mean you can skip the step--except when your daughter says not to.  I learned that I didn't know five tweeter handles I wanted to follow and couldn't help but wrinkle my nose at those Twitter suggested.  I learned that forty-eight-year-old parents should not set up Twitter accounts without one of their children supervising.

Some things I didn't learn despite asking, like when I said, "Wait a minute.  If I'm limited to 140 bytes then how can I upload a picture?"  Instead of answering, she laughed.  Hard.  Hey, I thought it was a good question, but I didn't press since she was doubled over and trying to breathe through snorts of uncontrollable laughter.  I'll just Google it.

But, hey, it's spring time now and I'm twitterpated!  (Gotta play off Bambi whenever possible, I always say.)  But be warned, I've yet to tweet anything.  For the first time in my life, I don't know what to say.  I just feel like my first time should be...special, you know?

140 characters?  Polaroids of the digital age.

You can find me at @JeffreySHargett  (I may have to look into upgrading that old flip phone after all.)