Beggars Would Ride

 

Image by narciso1 from pixabay.com

[October and November were celebration months in our household - and in the organization where I work.  You can imagine, in the time of corona, the number of wishes that were mandatory and the rest that just fly around the internet on the back of Social Media.  So, here's my take on the wishing overflow, in my own irreverent style.  Please comment, like/dislike, share or just smile and carry on.  It's been a long time since I wrote, so any kind of encouragement might bring forth a few more of these. - Leslie]

The Olde English phrase, "If wishes were horses beggars would ride", got me thinking: If wishes were anything tangible, beggars might ride, buy real estate, or high quality stereo equipment, go on holiday (post-Covid) and do a multitude of things other than risk keeping it in a local bank! And another thing, I don't know about you guys, but I have saved a lot of money in physical wishes, sending cards and gifts (thanks to Covid) and could probably now buy that horse or house too.

Good Morning!  Have a Blessed Day!

From the time I wake up, and often a few hours before that, a stream of beeps on the smartphone inform me that, with the best of intentions, they want me to wake up and have a Good Morning, a Blessed Day, a Super Sunday, Marvellous Monday (there's an alliteration for each day of the week) and occasionally a Throwback Thursday.  This one is especially important.  Thursdays were the one day we could lie in a bit as it was the weekly school holiday - not anymore. Social media has made it impossible to lie in, or even to lie at all.

Two blue ticks on WhatsApp immediately inform the well-wisher that you're up and about to make them wait with bated breath for your return wishes.  I am sure I have earned a few black marks in this as one of the first things I do - brushing teeth done - is to sit with the select button and delete all the messages that look like forwarded images, GIFs and good wishes.  Not that I don't want the wishes, far from it.  It's because I require the horsepower on my own smartphone and also the real-estate in phone memory.

Let's Move Forward

I used to search hopefully for a Good Morning message that was actually created or composed by the sender directly addressed to me.  While Hope Springs Eternal (these olde English phrases!) I soon realized that these were all "forwards" selectively sent to broadcast lists without hope of reciprocal responses.  Dashed hopes aside, I often wonder why we think that someone else says it better than we could.  My New Year's resolution, in fact New Media resolution, is to ensure that auto-download of pics and videos is OFF and that I spend some time deleting forwarded pictures -- well, not all.  There are some people who send really delightful stuff which I forward with a credit (er... just realized you might have a similar resolution too!) - so do look for my messages, they contain some good material (wink).

Banking on Mails & Messages

Apart from Good Morning messages, you wake up on your birthday (the one in your Aadhaar card) and ping!  There it is, a message from each of your bank accounts and your investments, not to mention your life and health insurance.  Look you're paying them, right? So they have the right to wish you well.  Fortunately they don't expect a 'Thank You' as evidenced by the email address which begins "no-reply@"  or the bold footer in the mail which says "DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE". Well, thank you, financial dudes!

If the emails can lie safely untouched in your inbox, you can't avoid the reflexive action of checking the SMS that come from the same people.  But then there's the SMS from some obscure shop you once visited or a restaurant whose goodies you ingested and digested last year.  "Happy Birthday!" it says, "When are you coming back?" it implies, and "Here's some goodies for you - free parking on your birthday, 10% on the base price of that horse you planned to buy, a surprise cupcake if you and your family (at least 10 persons) visit today before noon".  All very attractive, I'm sure.  Click to avail.

Remain Faceless? You're tagged

You can't hide from Facebook.  And neither can you pretend you forgot your friend's birthday. It pops up in your Notifications.  It also pops up the fact that you haven't written on other timelines in the last three days!  And it also pops up the useful information that your friend is about to have a birthday tomorrow, two days from now and a week hence.  Not only that, they are collecting for a noble cause and your birthday gift could really help them reach the target.  So, a few quiet minutes of click and post will keep Facebook out of your face for a day.

That's what my crib is really about -- these guys don't only inform you have to wish someone for their special day, they also pop up helpful quotes to choose from, along with weird and colourful GIFs (toilet paper cakes) and images (Leonardo di Caprio with a champage glass).  So, you don't even need to write you own message. Type H and the auto-complete suggests 'Happy', type B and it suggests 'Birthday', type the first two characters of your friend's name and it pops up a host of friends who share a similar name. At last, choices!  And one of the best responses is "Thanks for remembering my birthday!" -- as if I did.  Facebook let's me take the credit. But who's complaining? 

Getting Older, Answering Greetings

And if it's your birthday, don't worry this will happen in reverse.  You will get greetings from friends and family and friends of friends and family of friends of friends (extrapolate that to seven degrees of separation - modern English phrase).  If you decide to do something stupid like answer each one, as I did this year, other than God there will be half a million to bless you - provided they don't hit the delete button! And provided you are not still at it a week later. The "Thank you, everyone! Regret the inability to answer everyone individually" works perfectly actually.  

Linked Up Professionally

It's not over!  There's Linked In, your professional network, which you have been assiduously growing in the hope of rising up the corporate ladder.  You have been saying "Yes" to everyone who wants to connect, have been requesting to connect to other people who are connected as second or third connections to someone you know.  You've been joining Groups and lurking around reading high quality posts.  All of sudden Linked In has Leaked Out the information that it's your Birthday, replete with options to choose your wishes including your first name (Mine is Leslie_Francis on Linked In, so I know)!  And then floods of wishes from the greater "work" community.  Not content to leave it there, Linked In tells them it's your work anniversary in a job you've forgotten to update or which you lied about in the first place. Happy Anniversary might sound odd to a bachelor or spinster in the work force, but it works for your "work anniversary".  My favourite is the guy marked as "unemployed" who gets wished on his work anniversary of still being out in the cold.  

If wishes were horses, he would definitely ride! 

 [Please leave comments on the blog.  How do you feel about social media and wishing? Would love to hear.]