The mysteries of computer profiling baffle me. How is it
that accidentally passing the cursor over a hair product now clogs my screen with
advertisements for every means of straightening, curling, moisturizing,
growing, and glowing my hair? Computer ads are the techno version of those
annoying inserts that constantly fall out when I read a magazine.
Or the telemarketer that calls at 5:30 every night as we sit down to supper.
According to the pop-up ads on my computer, fifty-three men
from Burlington, NC, are searching for a woman just like me. That sounds suspiciously
like a posse or an angry mob. I’ve considered hiring some personal security,
but the ads say someone like me.
Maybe there is another menopausal, middle-aged, married woman with four kids this
band of marauders is seeking. Out there is someone just like me who is on the
lamb, hunted by a posse of eligible bachelors. I hope when they find her, they
treat her humanely. I know it’s not me these masculine hotties are searching
for because, according to my email spam box, I can easily enhance my male parts by
three inches. I can’t imagine those fifty-three Burlington men want to tangle
with that hormone-testosterone concoction.
It could be my recent Google search of Angela Landsbury that
sent me on this spiraling vortex of eligible bachelor pop-ups and male body
part enhancements. I’ve seen her early work on Turner Classic Movies and she
was not always the prim and proper Jessica Fletcher. I should check to see if
there is an Angela Landsbury fan club where like-minded Murder She Wrote fans can gather. Maybe that is where my fifty-three
man posse is hanging out in wait for my next cursor click.
I’ve also been researching serial killers for a class
presentation, but no related pop-ups or solicitations have appeared on my
screen or in my spam box. That seems a bit bias to me. What in my search
profile is so domestically dull that it overrides serial killer related pop-ups?
Which brings me to another irrational pondering – I am sure that
the powers that be are using my computer’s built-in camera to spy on me. The
majority of my activities in front of the computer are mundane - using the reflective
surfaces to check for stray nose hairs, sharing online pet videos with my dogs,
retrieving bagel crumbs from my cleavage, using spittle to clean sneeze
splatter off the screen - you know, normal stuff. But there is, on occasion, a
moment of brilliance that I believe is then exploited to line the pockets of
the already wealthy.
For instance, single-serve cottage cheese with a side of
fruit…that’s me. Smuckers strawberry jam with a spoonful of small curd cottage
cheese is totally my late night snack. And that stick Starbucks puts in their
to-go cup lids so your drink doesn’t bubble out the hole as you walk to the
car…me again. It was an invention of necessity that I affectionately call the stupid stick because every time I order
a delicious hot beverage, I inevitably spill it out that tiny, little hole in
the lid and chastise myself: “Stupid!”
For fun I’m considering conducting random searches on
nonsensical topics, like “proportion of moose attacks in correlation to beehive
hairdos.” Maybe I should ask my fifty-three bachelors if they would care to
join me in this venture. Or are these just the ramblings of a bored,
menopausal, middle-aged, married woman with four kids? I think not.
