A Bit About Me

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Along with my daily duties as founder and head writer of HumorMeOnline.com, in 2003, I took the Grand Prize in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition). I've also been a contributor to "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and the web's "The Late Show with David Letterman". I also occupy my time writing three blogs, "Blogged Down at the Moment", "Brit Word of the Day" and "Production Numbers"...and my off-time is spent contemplating in an "on again/off again" fashion...my feable attempts at writing any one of a dozen books. I would love to write professionally one day...and by that I mean "actually get a paycheck".

03 October 2011

What Would You Have Done?





So, I'm on Facebook tonite...and coupled with the usual silliness and celebrity games/antics (yes, I am now a "friend" of people like Justin Bateman, Paul Rudd, James Franco [altho he did "unfriend" me], Bruce Willis and George Clooney) I ran across a most disturbing post this evening.


A person, let's just call her "Sandy Chatfield", had posted up something which a friend of mine (whom I never talk to - but, you know, everyone's a friend on Facebook) had commented to - which caught my attention. My friend commented "Please someone, go over to her house. Make sure she is ok."


This, naturally, caught my eye as it was scrolling by - and I decided to "click" on what transpired for her to say such a thing. Face it, we've all heard of people killing themselves online...and/or reaching out online for some type of intervention.


I took this as a sign from God...perhaps God wants me to intervene somehow - otherwise I probably wouldn't have seen it at the exact second it was scrolling past - but now I have...and I can't turn a blind eye to it. If this woman shows up dead tomorrow and the list of comments from people such as "I tried to call her and she's not answering...does anyone know her address?" goes nowhere and I'm somehow a cog that gets the gears rolling to stop this...well, I'm going to do what I can to make sure that happens.


With me still?


Anyway, I am not allowed to comment on her Facebook page because I'm not her "friend". So, either I sit and watch as time goes by and everyone isn't taking the action they should and this lady possibly dies...or I dive right in and get involved and say "at least I tried".


I decided to go with the "at least I tried" route. I won't have someone's death on my conscience...even IF I don't know that person.


I private message'd a few of the responders to her initial post...and for the record, no one has messaged me back..even tho it's been a few hours.


Now, bear in mind I'm sitting at home doing homely duties like making dinner and looking forward to a nice glass of wine...while this "plea for help" comes ticking across my otherwise mundane and stupid Facebook page.


Her message read as follows:


"Bye my friends!!! I am done with games etc,,,, about done with everything in life. So tired of trying so hard to get nowhere. It is time for a really long nap!....A very long one!! Love you my friends and angels on your pillows"


This is followed by a couple posts by her friends and then the following exchanges by her:


"so tired of everything honey!"


"Don't think I will wake up!"


Then absolute "radio" silence for an hour or so (and about 100 posts later) while her friends frantically try to call her, scurry around trying to find an address to go with a cell phone number, call the police to no avail, and plead with her to answer, when...finally, this woman comes back online and chortles, "Hey!!!! not trying to kill myself!!! feel like it but It is not my nature!!! Why is everyone thinking this>>>" and "What did I say that makes you think I would end y life???"


Her friends then try to justify their concerns while she is in total "huh...I don't get it" mode.


Then she proceeds to cuss out the person who sent the police around to her door as, according to her, they came by to make sure she was okay. This specific post of hers is now gone as she deleted it -- so I can't quote it verbatim...but it had the words "...to the person who called the police, **** YOU!!" -- or along those same general "grateful" lines.


All I can say is...if she were my friend and played this game...she wouldn't be my friend now. Talk about someone who is appreciative that someone cares, huh? And not just one person cared - but a whole slew of them. Hell, I'd be dead now waiting for Bruce Willis to respond back.


So, I'm wondering now if this was just a silly Facebook hoax she was playing...or if it was real...and if the players in the whole episode are real or if they were just part of some stupid larger scheme to see if someone would take it all seriously. I'm not going to waste any more of my time on someone who "cries wolf" on Facebook to illicit a response.


I wasted upwards of an hour on this woman trying to save her life. I was one step away from calling the Las Vegas police department on more than one occasion in that hour. I Googled, I found an address, I mailed that address to several of her "friends" who posted there, I stopped short of contacting a child she had listed as a family member to see if they could call to make sure she was alive. She basically put me through hell for an hour. Me...someone who will never know her...someone who cared enough to try to make a difference...for her and those around her who might actually care and love her.


I know the odds of this woman ever reading this blog is pretty much nil, but if, somehow, she does...I want to leave her with this thought: If this wasn't a sick game...choose your words much more carefully next time, and if it was...remember those choice words you deleted? I've got a couple for you, "...you, too".




(This was written last nite...but not posted until today.)




20 comments:

  1. Unbelievable. What some people won't do for attention.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, I don't get her 'huh?' mode. How can you act like that after making such shit? To be Honest, I found the cries sort of 'attention seeking' then a cry for a real help. Especially when she said 'what makes you think I would end my life?" Obviously doesn't take suicide seriously. I find there are too many crazies online. I really do. I can't trust anyone.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I know. I know now that she was definitely an attention seeker and was probably elated with each passing post...probably got the shock of her life when the cops came (if they did)...and then did that whole "what...huh??" thing.

    While I understand someone wanting to get attention and whatnot, there's a whole world of crazy out there that goes beyond being just the silly drunk at the party...or the obnoxious bore at your child's field trip.

    She crossed the line when she did this - and I hope her friends see her for her true self. A real friend doesn't do this to their friends.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Facebook. The work of Satan.

    She posts pathetic, "woe is me" crap trying to get attention, and when she gets it she turns bitchy?

    People. Jeez.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That's the problem with the abundance of social media sites and whatnot, eh? Many supposed cries for help aren't really that, and who's to know what's real and what's not? The shame is that those who truly need help may be ignored when one too many others have cried "Wolf!"

    I probably would have done as you did, if that's any consolation.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Holy shit.

    Clearly that person was making threats to get attention - but to be MAD at the person genuinely concerned enough to call the cops to make sure she was okay - is pure insanity.

    Wow.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Geez, what a dumb twit! I send congrats your way on trying to do everything you could to try and locate her..that was very resourceful.

    I am glad she is okay, but will anyone ever believe her again? On anything she says or does?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Based on past experience with something similar, I'm guessing her cry for help was real and that she was pissed when her plans were thwarted. Depression can really screw with a person's mind.

    ReplyDelete
  9. wow that woman sucks..... and as for the "gonna end it" message she posted..... I cant help but wonder if anyone liked it?

    oh ya and tell Bruce hi from me!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I get the same thing, and have had to unfriend and block them since they are acting like twits... then there are the trolls, the people who are pumping me for information just because I have a friend who got an Encyclopedia Dramatica article written about her, and the people who got me perma-banned from two forums, one of which I was a well-loved moderator on and was a spinoff of the other, just for being unpopular...

    ReplyDelete
  11. How the heck did I not see all these comments? I swear the notifications must have all gone into my spam folder.

    I really have to go and Google "Encyclopedia Dramatica"...that just sounds hilarious! I hope it's as funny as I think it is. :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Mariann, you do NOT want to see ED. It is extremely racist, sexually inappropriate, slanderous in places and manages to call itself "satire".

    ReplyDelete
  13. Oh, that kinda thing. Like trying to just shock and relying on the shock value to be funny.

    Like how reality shows have replaced actual witty/funny writing in general.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Yes, very much so. They try too hard to be funny and are just offensive...

    ReplyDelete
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