Foul play

It is better to give a statutory warning at the beginning of this write-up: playing “social sweethearts” games on Facebook can be highly addictive. They can also be surprisingly informative because as soon as you click on their one line questionnaire, you discover things about yourself that were previously unknown. Even to your own self! 

I have learnt, for instance, that my birthstone is turquoise, I have been reincarnated 84,000 and 47 times, the profession that I was born to do is bartending, 99 per cent of the people I know envy my composure, my three lovable flaws are that I am impatient, lazy and stubborn, I have 180 secret admirers, my rainbow colour is yellow and my favourite four-letter word is “from”.  

From? What sort of a favourite four-letter word is that? It was exactly at this point of the game that I smelled foul play. I mean, of all four lettered words in the world, like, care, dare, fair, bear, dark, bark, lark, mark, take, bake, make, cake, lust, must, bust, dust, ahem, even, oven, amen, why pick “from?” I should have stopped playing these puerile games immediately. But you know how it is with flawed stubborn personalities. I became more and more curious. 

Therefore, I soon discovered that I was an active and humorous person. But wait a minute; was I not labelled lazy earlier? Maybe it meant that I was actively lazy, or in fact, lazily active? Further, heartwise I was 29 years of age but my face was that of a 15-year old. Gosh! If only “social sweethearts” had seen me at age fifteen! With braces on my teeth and thick bushy and unruly eyebrows, that was one phase I did not ever want to revisit in my life. I was losing hope when so many things were being predicted wrongly so quite listlessly I clicked the query that asked me “where would you be in one year?”

What was revealed cheered me up. “You are going straight to the top” I was told. The window that opened had my Facebook display picture perched on the uppermost hill of very picturesque scenery, which had a dark blue river snaking its way around a valley. “The image stands for your private life and your career because you will reach the peak of the mountain. Your dreams will come true and you will be completely happy and fulfilled. Your friends and family can feel this joy and will do anything to support you! Wow!” I read out. 

“Wow!” echoed the voice in my head. I suddenly got a newfound respect for the writers of “social sweethearts”. They undoubtedly knew how to engage a most reluctant player into their game. If I carried on playing for some more time there was no doubt that I would start believing in all this balderdash. But before banning myself from further play I decided to click on one last question that informed me about the type of woman I was.

“I am a role model, you know,” I beamed at my husband in the evening.

“For whom?” my spouse asked.

“For others and I’m going straight to the top,” I told him. 

“From where?” he wanted to know.

“Is ‘from’ my favourite four-letter word?” I cut in. 

“No,” he replied.

“What is it then?” I was curious.

“It’s similar sounding”, he twinkled.

“Form?” I guessed.

“Firm,” he stated.