Friends For The Holidays

Over the past couple of months, I’ve noticed a weird trend in my Facebook friend requests—they’re all coming from dudes with two first names. I don’t mean like Joe-Bob Smith; I mean I’m getting requests on the daily from guys called Andrew Mark, John Joseph, or Michael Steven. It’s like someone googled “most popular white man names” and started pairing them up. And before you think I’m stereotyping, ALL of these guys are white. And Christian. And widowed. And either doctors or in the military. Which begs the question, knowing me as you do—why the HELL would a white Christian widowed army doctor want to be MY friend?! But I began to suspect that it was just a scam and that none of these guys were actually real right at the very beginning (based on the fact that none of them had any followers and their pictures all looked like what you’d get if you asked Siri, “Find me a photograph of a generic middle-aged white man”) and I’ve been deleting at least two fake friend requests a day. And then came the icing on the cake last week when I got a friend request from a man named Harry. HARRY NUTZ. Seriously?! You couldn’t snare me with Robert David and you think I’m going to fall for hairy nuts? And Harry also identifies himself as a “Christian” and single (with a name like that, it’s no wonder). Slight tangent: I had a cousin in England whose actual name was Harry Dick. But nobody thought it was funny because back then, people in England didn’t refer to manparts as “dicks”. Now, if his name had been Harry Willy, he’d never have lived it down. At any rate, I deleted Harry Nutz’s request as well, on the grounds that his nuts were probably a front for some scam artist who didn’t know how to manscape.

In other news, we recently celebrated New Year’s Day and when I looked at my Google calendar, I noticed that New Year’s Day was highlighted, but that the 2nd was also highlighted as “Day After New Year’s Day (Quebec)” and I was very confused by this. Do the French need a special reminder that the 2nd comes directly after the 1st? But then I investigated further and became enraged. Apparently, if you live in Quebec, you get an EXTRA HOLIDAY on the day after New Year’s Day, and if you live in Ontario, like me, YOU DON’T. And I had to WORK on the 2nd while all the Quebecois were enjoying their extra day off eating poutine and whatnot. And then I investigated even FURTHER when I realized that my Google calendar highlighted all the different days off that each province in Canada gets and now I want to live in Newfoundland, where on top of all the holidays we get here, they get almost one extra day off every month, including St. Patrick’s Day, St. George’s Day, Orangeman’s Day, and a random holiday to celebrate a BOAT RACE called The Royal St. John’s Regatta. They literally have a holiday in June called JUNE DAY. And other provinces and territories have equally tenuous holidays, like in the Yukon, where they get to celebrate Discovery Day, which commemorates that time Yukon Cornelius discovered gold in a glacier after battling the Abominable Snowman. And I was going to do better research on the whole Yukon thing but then I went down a rabbit hole of holidays and discovered that January 7th is known for several interesting holidays including Distaff Day and National Pass Gas Day, so for the rest of this fine Sunday, I’ll be farting around at a spinning wheel.

42 thoughts on “Friends For The Holidays”

  1. First things first, I purchased a copy of your book, What Any Normal Person Would Do. It was, quite honestly, one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. Truly a masterpiece! I’ve added it to Amelia’s pile, and suggested the book to my mom as well. Well done, Suzanne!

    As for Facebook, if you get a friend request from Steve Miller, be very cautious. Steve has gained the reputation of being a, “space cowboy”. He has admitted to being a joker, a smoker, and a midnight toker who apparently gets his loving on the run because he can’t commit.

    Anyway, keep up the good work, thanks for all the laughs, and please keep in touch.

    -The (Original) Girl Named Tom 🙂

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  2. OMG Suzanne, hairy nutz???? too fricking funny! I have been getting a LOT of friend requests on fb since I changed my status to widow…think FB algorhythms are just screwed up. Love the fart holiday….and wondering if I make a petition here these crazy Oklahomans would make that a holiday just for me.

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  3. It’s a weird coincidence that just yesterday my wife and I were driving to an art store and passed the office of “Doctor Robert Larry”. I’ve known doctors named Larry, and also doctors named Robert—Doctor Robert is known as one who’ll pick you up if you drink from his special cup, and in no way associated with the medical student Maxwell Edison, infamous for his silver hammer. Anyway I’ve been wondering ever since if a doctor with two first names can be trusted, and now you’ve got me even more concerned.
    Anyway we could all use more holidays. I’m a particular fan of Twelfth Night. I might not feel that way, though, if my name were Malvolio.

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  4. Okay out of all the holidays, Orangeman’s Day is the one that caught my attention. What the heck is that and why would there be a holiday celebrating a man, that’s obviously, an orange. Your experience is exactly one of the reasons why I don’t have social media. Now I’m wondering what other weird names you might encounter, lol.

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  5. I used to get lots of friend requests of the same sort, Suzanne. They’re creepy. People are so strange, aren’t they? Why do this? The US strictly limits the number of “day off” holidays for peasants. I’m glad Canada is a little more liberal about that.

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  6. I sometimes get those kinds of “friends” on social media, but I got an onslaught last year–from the military and health systems–when I posed for a picture New Year’s in a silver sequined dress and posted the caption, “What shall I wear to the living room?”

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  7. My all calendar says Jan 2 is The day After New Years in New Zealand. This was the first time we heard of that. I celebrate Jan 5 every year as my personal new year (birthday). You’re welcome to take the day off and celebrate with me. 🙂

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  8. I had to code up the global & national holidays for a business app. When it came to Canada and all its regional differences Wikipedia’s entry on the topic made me throw up my hands and just allow “custom holidays” that clients needed to fill out. No way was I going to write the code for all those goofy holidays.
    While on the topic I formulated a global calendar where only the pagan holidays, as determined by the position of the Earth around the Sun, would be considered. You get eight and that’s it. And they’re perfectly spaced and fixed by the cosmos. Nobody went for it. (Reminds me of my programmers’ approach to re-imagining the English alphabet.)

    Robert The Bruce! Bruce The Bob! Brucebert? Broce? Names are strange things. Got a guy at work whose last name is David. Never heard that one before.

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  10. Suzanne, don’t we celebrate something somewhere every day? It’s either National Plate Day or Global Fork Day or what have you? As to names — well, don’t get me started! It’s all a conspiracy to drive us mad, I tell ya! Ooh, I wonder when Global Conspiracy Day is? Mona

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  11. you’d think that will the garbage that Facebook puts legitimate people through, they’d get their metrix or whatevers together regarding these criminals that anyone can spot from a mile away – I truly feel sorry for the people who’re so mentally limited that they fall for them…

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  14. Pretty sure the credit manager at the Oklahoma City car dealership “Jim Ed Grant Ford” was Jim’s brother-in-law, Billy Joe Ed Bob.

    No credit application refused. And . . . I hear he’s “available.”

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