My Facebook Miracle

I can be impossibly stubborn when I feel pushed (cue the sounds of shock!). My brother Ben kept calling me a LOSER for not having a MySpace or Facebook page but I kept ignoring him, hoping that social networking would be a passing fad. It’s not that I’m a technophobe, but having four kids has a way of making one realign daily the things you need to do and the stuff you want to do.

Even as I created my Facebook page, I was still skeptical about engaging in the activity. Who cared what books I read? Does anyone really care where I’ve traveled? Is being a fan of Sex in the City passe? Why would anyone want to poke me? And, don’t even get me started on the status updates! I was paralyzed thinking what I could and should share. Are my kids birthdays OK or shameless? Does anyone care if I’m sitting at the George Michael concert?

A couple of months later, though I had spent virtually no time on my page, added no pictures, sent no friend requests, my Facebook page yielded the miracles and an amazing demonstration of human kindness.

I took a Dramamine on a flight from Cincinnati to Newark. Though Dramamine works like a charm for air sickness, it also turns me into a drooling zombie if my flight is less than 5 hours. I didn’t even remember that I had left my IPod Nano in the seat back pocket until I was 40 miles into my trip back home. Though I was sad for losing it, I knew that I had a better chance of winning the lottery than ever getting it back.

The next day, I got a friend request from a name I did not recognize. Normally paranoid about getting emails from strangers, something made me open it. Lo and behold, it was an email from a man who had found the IPod and wanted to return it to me! I accepted his friend request and sent him a gushing email thanking him and asking if I could pay for postage and if he could also send me his address so that I could send him a gratitude gift. More miracles! Not only did he refuse to accept shipping money from me but requested that I did not send him a gratitude gift.

My husband was incredulous. He doubted I would even get it back yet two days later, the bubble padded pack arrived with my IPod! It included a note that said that I should not be so cynical about acts of human kindness and that my music mix sucked anyway! Priceless.