Of memes and beefs

I was surfing the internet when I came across a question asking the pettiest thing people had done and for the life of me I couldn’t come up with an answer. A shit eating grin spread across my face.

“Damn girl, you’re so grown up you don’t have a case of petty actions in your record,” I said while giving myself a pat on the back.

I was elated, I was thoroughly impressed, I was over the moon. Then like a slap to the face it struck me.

“Weren’t you a person of interest in ‘meme gate ’?”My killjoy conscience shouted.

I faltered, the grin on my face disappeared.

“You’ve been a bad bad person," Ms Killjoy continued to admonish.

My recently smug face was now creased in shame. The events that were hindering me from earning a spot in the Guinness book of world records for worlds least petty person began to play in a loop in my mind. 

I wasn’t always this childish. Once upon a time I was a serious person, too engrossed with mulling over the wonders of the universe to let small things get to me. Then the meme happened. I blame it all on the meme. The horrid meme, the terrible meme, the friendship destroying meme.

Why? Why didn’t anybody tell me not to post it? Why did they let me do this to myself? I held my head in my hands as feelings of regret began to seep in. My breathing became laboured as I swallowed the bitter pill of regret.

I recalled the profound indifference with which I had posted the meme.

“You, never know, someone out there might actually find this interesting,” I muttered absent-mindedly while adding a caption to demonstrate my savvy photo captioning skills.

 I blame it on my instinct, my lazy instinct.

Oh instinct of mine, why didn’t you warn me?

Why did you fail me you lazy lazy instinct?

I wish I knew then what I know now, I would never have hit the send button. My reputation as a serious person would still be impeccable. Our solid friendship would still be standing.

I sigh. I  was a little fool. I should never have hit send.

How? How could I not have known? How could I not have foreseen that someone would read between the lines? How could I not have predicted that someone would connect the dots that I did not know existed? How could I not know that someone would jump into a misguided conclusion?

It’s all true, I acknowledge. A less petty person would not have shared the meme.

“Weren’t you a person of interest in ‘meme gate ’?”My killjoy conscience shouted. I faltered, the grin on my face disappeared. “You’ve been a bad bad person, “Ms Killjoy continued to admonish.