My Dad Is On Facebook! (Gasp!)

You go home after work and the first thing you see upon entering the house is your dad with his back turned to you. You tiptoe towards him and you see him in front of his laptop, one-finger-typing his way into cyberspace. A few more steps and you happen to look at the upper left side of the screen and you see a familiar blue banner with the word clean logo of FACEBOOK. You get a sinking feeling in your tummy because you knew that what you have been delaying for quite some time now is happening. The inevitable has happened.

Your. Dad. Is. On. Facebook.

*sharpsuddenintakeofbreathfollowedbygibberish*

Yes, fellow netizens. My technophobic of a father has recently taken a ride on the bandwagon called Facebook. He has been bugging me about getting his own laptop (with matching threats of destroying mine if I didn't get away my arse from my laptop pronto!) and practicing MS Word and Excel (which have been left in limbo after discovering the joys of Gmail and Facebook). After a month of badgering me, we finally hunted for that laptop which will match his needs (spacious keypad, widescreen) and preferences (he wants it in black. Any color will render him unmanly. Men!). So I discarded the idea of getting him those insibinsi netbooks (keypad and screen are too teeny-sized and I can sense that familiar impatience of mistyping words and squinting at the screen - not a good sign). But the salesman kept on insisting to my dad that the Samsung netbook is a bang for the buck with the free external optical drive. Little did Mr. Salesman know I can be charming and ruthless at the same time. With crushed spirit, he grudgingly went to the stockroom and brought us the Dell Vostro.

Kaching-kaching moments after, we head home to tinker around with the new laptop. It was pre-installed with Linux and it had Mozilla Firefox so my dad was able to connect to the internet immediately. I taught him the basics of manuevering through the WWW while arguing with him because of username and password stuff. Few days after, he was still fuming over his password and username and why they don't work. I checked out what he was doing and he was putting his username and password in different sites! After arguments (and threats of destroying my laptop, again!), slo-mo version of my explanation, and permanently saving his passwords in the browser, I retreated peacefully to my still-unsmashed laptop.

Fastforward to morning after. He was proudly telling me how he found his highschool batchmates in Facebook. He also found his long lost acquaintances (don't ask me how long they were lost. Let's save it for another blog later) as well as his other relatives (oh my! As if I don't have enough already!), kumpares and kumares (sadly, no long-lost ninongs or ninangs for me. There goes my aguinaldo on Christmas). Even his ex-girlfriend and the girl he almost courted. THE ABSOLUTE HORROR!

THE ABSOLUTE HORROR! HORROR! ABSOLUTE!

My dad has found a constant (internet) companion with these lovely ladies who we shall hide under the codenames X1 and X2. Both are in US, and with the time difference between our country and theirs, it's convenient for them to chat up my dad.

....who is online every single night. He is on Facebook but I don't really know much about his online activities because he did one thing I didn't see coming.

HE BLOCKED ME AND MY SISTER ON FACEBOOK *gaspgaspdoubledoseofcursingandwhatnots*

Yes, fellow netizens. My father, whose flesh and blood were a part of my genetic structure, has decided that he doesn't want to see or know about my activities, statuses about my rantings in life, and links that could potentially interest him.

When asked for the reason on blocking us, his two lovely ladies (ahemwalangkokontraahem): "Wala lang. Ayoko lang makita yung mga post ng mga kabataan ngayon. Nire-reject ko nga pag bata ang nag-add sa akin eh. Di ko lang type."

This statement must have been made with the jejemons in mind. Those ruthless, language-bending humanoids have scared my dad into internet safety. Hence, the blocking.

Hence, failing me of my stalking prowess. Damn. I so wanted to see who are those lovely ladies. Damn you, blocking! Damn you!


This is the MAN. Take note of the mustache.