After a sleepless night, I got up this morning tired and not ready to begin. I flipped through facebook.
Things that I do not understand:
A post:
I was in Warren ALDIs this morning and noticed a man following me in the isles. I didn’t really think to much of it and kept shopping. He followed me to the freezer isle and would pretend to get in the freezer but wouldn’t grab anything. 
I thought that was strange but went on my way. I went all the way acrossed the store and a lady came up to me and asked me if I was here with a man. I told her ”no” and she said there is a man with long hair following you around the store and keeps staring at you. I told her I thought he was, but didn’t think to much about it.
She then said I should just be careful…I told her I would have someone walk me to my car. I continued to see him so, I walked to the back of the store and looked around until I saw him cash out. I went to checkout and I REALLY didn’t want to bother anyone by telling them what happened and ask if they would walk me to my car 
Luckily, someone I knew was also checking out and I asked him he would walk to my car with me.
The lady came back into the store to let me know the man had gotten into his car but pulled out of the parking spot and was just sitting there. She said he eventually pulled out and went towards Jamestown but wasn’t sure how far he went.
I have NEVER witnessed something like this ever. It was seriously the scariest thing and I am so glad that lady was there to look out for me. 
Always look out for each other and NEVER be afraid to ask for help.
Why does this disturb me? Because of all the comments which pretty much amounted to "OMG!" "TERRIFYING!" followed by assertions that we must all begin to carry concealed weapons on our person because of all the human trafficking going on.
It also disturbs me because it is almost word for word copy and pasted from a post that regularly makes the rounds. A local store has been added. Also, the suspicious character is usually a Mexican. I guess this woman is not a xenophobe.
Why are people so quick to believe that they are in mortal peril each and every moment? This did not happen. My daughter works at the store. They have video surveillance. They would like the person to come and point out the man that was following her. The poster has disabled comments.
Why do people feel the need to post bullshit like this? Why do people feel the need to validate such bullshit?
I also saw another post. Someone is cleaning out their shed. One of the things that they are getting rid of is two very high end motion detector lights which switch on automatically as someone approaches the door.
Tim stopped by and picked them up on his way to the new build. We are always amazed to find people getting rid of perfectly good things, but, hey...it works for us.
My latest facebook posts:
Anyways, the many sides of facebook. The good, the bad, and the funny.
And that's why I quit using FB, years ago.
ReplyDeleteI use it to keep track of family, but am starting to think that I'm seeing more BS than family stuff.
DeleteI have seen similar posts and agree with you. People have too much time on their hands. However(!)…something happened to e in a Hobby Lobby in our town a couple of years ago. I was walking around looking at the vast array of Christmas stock, just browsing. I became aware of an older man shadowing me. So, I kept an eye on him. At one point an older woman came up to him and they exchanged words, parted and he continued to show up on every aisle I moved to.
ReplyDeleteI pretty much determined they were a couple and probably working as security trying to spot shoplifters. Why me? Don’t know. A seventy-something grandmother. So…..it became a game. I managed to get behind him and shadowed him, just looking and browsing behind him…every aisle he moved to. I never looked directly at him, but he seemed to figure it out and got so flustered. I had great fun and finally left without buying anything. My real story…not plagiarized. 😁
And that's my point. Just because someone is, in your mind, acting suspiciously, doesn't mean they are bad people. You didn't post the story in a breathless, 'OMG, I was nearly kidnapped by human trafficker in the ALDIs.' How does point A even lead to Point B?
DeleteYou won't believe it, but I had a man follow me around in our local Aldy's one day...and I just went to someone who worked there and pointed it out to her. Then I worked back up the aisle where he had been following me, and I followed him! Turns out he was just waiting around (no cart) for his wife who was with the cart and busy looking at something or another. I wasn't that worried, but I do seldom see anyone walking grocery store aisles without a cart! Yes FB is full of deep truths...and sometime hilarious things...and now stories created by BOTS.
ReplyDeleteYou noticed, you were wary, you followed up on it, and discovered he wasn't a human trafficker attempting to kidnap you and force you into a life of depravity.
DeleteThey do it for attention. And they can get innocent people attacked or shot. These types of posts are all over the Being Neighborly sites and it's why I've disabled them. If you pull in the wrong driveway or go slowly to look for an address, you're trying to case their houses, kidnap their children, or steal their car.
ReplyDeleteThe comments lead me to think that it was another rallying point for second amendment radicals.
DeleteWhat an odd post, kinda sounds like fake hysteria and attention seeking to me. I don't spend much time on FB at all.
ReplyDeleteIt would not be bad, truly, if you were able to pick out who you want to hear from and not be bombarded by all these people you don't know, and furthermore, have no interest in knowing. I only became aware of her post because someone I know shared it. She is a 'God, Guns, and Country' gal.
DeleteThanks for the laughs. I shall blame the furniture for my problems from now on.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago I had a muslim man who was blind. His wife always came in with him and she always wore a hijab and looked like a serious muslim woman. One day I was teasing him and asked him if his wife ever moved the furniture around when she was mad at him. He seemed quite shocked and said, of course not. I helped him back to the waiting room and when he sat down beside his wife. I asked her if she ever moved the furniture when she was mad at him. She looked at me and said, of course. I loved that woman.
LOL.
DeleteWhat terrified me the most was the terrible grammar and spelling.
ReplyDeleteSue
Yes!
DeleteThese people are never noted for their command of the mother tongue.
DeleteAlright, Sue just gave me a chuckle--yes this was both lame & dreadful. SO GLAD I left Facebook in 2016, everyone said I'd be back in a week--nope! I don't miss this kind of nonsense one bit.
ReplyDeleteI'm starting to think that I'll do the same, skip facebook, and just read my IMs.
DeleteI am not a prolific user of FB and I just don't see this kind of thing at all. I don't see unreasonable rants or extreme politics. FB is a strange beast.
ReplyDeleteHere it is a tool for people trying to make a point. All sides. It gets kind of noisy.
DeleteI like FB for the community groups (without the hysteria) and the funnies. Sometimes the conspiracies are as funny as the jokes but then we don't get to carry concealed or otherwise here, so any reference to such I know probably comes from your neck of the woods. We do have our fair share of nutters here but not advocating shooting people.
ReplyDeleteIt's not funny to me. People just believe these things with zero amount of critical thinking. That post justifies nothing, but people really believes it validates the need for women to be armed at all times. Crazy talk. It's been shared 124 times.
DeleteFB is indeed getting worse. You can usually spot these weirdo posts straight away and I sometimes read them just for amusement, however, I am saddened that so many gullible people believe this dross.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that they "believe it" per se. I really do think if it validates their view (IE second amendment rights) they pass that on.
DeletePeople share without checking..so many of these are things that go round and round for years
ReplyDeleteI mean that's really what got me about this post. It is, word for word, a repeat of a woman being stalked by dangerous looking men of mideastern appearance in an IKEA in Pittsburgh. Or the woman being stalked by Mexican men in Walmart (in that case, the woman provided a picture of their camper, and the license plate along with her words). The men were quickly IDed as seasonal help from a local produce farmer, and she was outraged that the post, in effect, targeted some good people she had a long term business relationship with.
DeleteLove the dolphin joke. It's like a Marx brothers film.
ReplyDeleteGlad to be of service, Dave.
DeleteI see those apocryphal stories on FB. While I can often tell, I think this one might have fooled me.
ReplyDeleteDead giveaways to me:
Delete1) I know that store. It has six aisles. It is not a supermarket. It runs on a handful of employees, one of which is on register, another is running up and down the aisles shopping for instacart orders, and a couple more are stocking shelves. They also have cameras. Kind of a risky place to hunt for women.
3) These sorts of posts all have very similar wording.
4) In all of these stories, NOT ONE OF THEM ever involves someone actually speaking to or with the alleged 'dastardly deed doer'. Also, NOT ONE OF THEM ever brings the situation to the attention of store employees so that it can be handled by law enforcement.
LOL. And...I can't count!
DeleteI live near a larger town where a lot of people from my original hometown move to.
ReplyDeleteBackstory - during the week I was over there and at one point my Dad and I swapped vehicles. I had to ask where the key was for his keyless start vehicle as U needed to do some chores in main street before we remet and I would need to lock it. He laughed at me, because it is the sort of small town where everyone leaves their cars unlocked with keys in because nobody steals cars (to his and a lot of locals minds anyhow).
Anyhoo, larger town is not of that ilk. Another lady also from original town but now over here posted that someone had broken into her car and stolen her work id. 157 comments on how stupid she was to leave anything of value in it
I not u
DeleteYeah. We're discovering that small town living is also not as untouched by crime as it used to be as well.
DeleteGlad I never bothered with FB, too much crap on it I gather! Gigi
ReplyDeleteYou're one of the smart ones.
DeleteI guess that people have always told urban legends but I have to say that FB has certainly expanded that world. I remember the first thing I ever read online (this was way before FB) that was an obvious lie which was that the ballpits at McDonald's play area were infested with snakes. Or was it spiders? I think someone makes this shit up, posts it, and then other people share and share and share. I have a terrible urge when I read one to do a Snopes search and link the information there as a comment. And it's not just stories like this. It's stuff like how if you ever find yourself in a car that is submerged in water (how often does this happen?) you can pull the headrest off and use the sharpened metal pieces on it to break a window and escape! That car manufacturers design these metal parts just for that reason!
ReplyDeleteIt never ends.
Oh, I very often use snopes. I very often post the link in the comment. It doesn't help. In one case, a poster actually said, "LOL. I wondered...."
DeleteSadly, it isn't just Facebook. I'm thinking of Fox News and our former president and the nutty stories they present as facts.
ReplyDeleteYou're right.
DeleteWhen I see stories like that, I generally just stop reading them after a line or two because like you said, they are just crap stories pasted to make people worry about unnecessary things. Just yesterday, in my feed, a woman posted a picture of trash strewn about on a recently rebuilt pedestrian bridge and made some politicized comment about people who do such things. Yet, a dozen other people besides me, simply saw a nearby trashcan that had been raided by a raccoon during the night.
ReplyDeleteI tend not to friend people who share such things on a regular basis or if etiquette demands it, I unfollow them so their garbage doesn't clutter my feed.
I'm at a point to just stop looking at or doing facebook at all. It has turned into Bullshit Central, sadly.
DeleteI hardly use FB now. It's mostly drivel. My only FB friends are family. I use a separate browser for it which deletes all cookies on exit. I never read the feed.
ReplyDeleteOkay. Now that's very interesting to me, Tasker. I like to follow family. Right now, I've got relatives vacationing in Iceland, and I love looking at their pictures. I never thought of using a separate browser. And how do you get a browser to delete your cookies on exit. I would LOVE that.
DeleteI also use Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family overseas- I resisted for a long time, but it does make me feel more connected to them. I don’t check in to often lately, but when I see people posting ALL THE TIME about things that don’t concern or interest me, I simply ‘unfollow’ them- they won’t know, but I don’t have to deal with their millions of silly posts! -Ricki
ReplyDeleteI think that it is just better for me to stick to IM.
ReplyDeleteThis is really the downside of social media.
ReplyDeleteIt sure does damage, doesn't it?
DeleteThis is definitely a modern phenomenon. I don't know why so many people are hooked on fear. Perhaps it makes them feel more alive and more connected to warn others of hazards, even if they're fake!
ReplyDeleteFearmongering, from my view point, is all about making a case that all of us need to be armed and prepared to defend ourselves. Or unscrupulous people create or catastrophize a problem so that they can offer up 'solutions'. It might sound sensible on the face of it, until you realize the problem is wildly exaggerated.
Delete