This is Twitter. Twitter is a place where people share their thoughts and their sandwiches and their thoughts about their sandwiches. It can also be an important tool in revolutionary social movements. Many famous people use Twitter. Even the President of the United States uses Twitter! Spelling and punctuation are hard for him. Spelling is very important. And proper punctuation is a lost art. If you learn how to use a semicolon, you will go very far in life.
This is the iPad. Apple invented the iPad. It is not a toy even though it looks like one. The iPad is where the Backyardigans and Thomas the Tank Engine live. The iPad is also a way for Mommy and Daddy to neglect you and not have it be called child abuse.
This is Instagram. Instagram is a place filled with beautiful pictures of beautiful places and beautiful people. Everyone seems to be on vacation on Instagram. The people cheated on their pictures. Cheating is very bad. No woman looks like that after she has a child, but I don’t regret having you, I swear. (And I definitely would not choose having time to do yoga or to sleep in over having a child, definitely, absolutely, a hundred per cent not.)
This is Google. Google is where people get all sorts of information, like when the Vietnam War ended or the phone number to the pizza parlor where—not that Mommy has noticed—the pizza maker looks like a young Ray Liotta and has strong, angular hands. It is also how Aunt Jane found out that Uncle Howard was looking at videos of naked people. Uncle Howard did not use the Clear History option on the browser, which is an important thing to do.
This is e-mail. E-mail is a way that people communicate, and it is how Grandpa Jake sends jokes that are offensive in all caps. E-mail is also how Mommy discovered that Daddy was being a bad boy. Daddy said that the detailed descriptions of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Marriott hotel and a woman with “slate-blue eyes” were only his “erotic imagination,” but Daddy is a liar.
This is Amazon. You can buy almost anything on Amazon, and soon they will deliver things with tiny little airplanes called drones. Amazon also forced many stores in town to close. But the drones! So neat! Amazon also owns Whole Foods, where Daddy likes to buy dinner and pretend he made it.
This is Facebook. Facebook, which is run by a mysterious manchild with a hood, is where friends and family can learn news of each other’s lives. It also used to be a good place for Mommy to look up ex-boyfriends and wonder, “What if?” As in, “What if I had known that Ayden would grow up to open an eco lodge in Costa Rica and retain all of his luscious hair, or that the constant pot-smoking and Led Zeppelin wasn’t actually a sign of a lack of ambition?” Then Facebook started selling people’s private information to bad companies run by men even more mysterious than the manchild with the hood. So now Facebook is bad, and many people have left it, and Mommy is forced to go to her college reunion and urge Daddy to stay home by saying that it will be a good bonding time for you two.
This is YouTube. You already know YouTube! YouTube is where some of some of your cartoons are. There is also a video of cousin Eric’s bar-mitzvah reception, in which kids are doing dances called “the worm” or “the robot,” which you should never do, especially during puberty and on camera. Speaking of dancing, let me tell you—Mommy, back in the day, before you were born, could really shake her money-maker (but I definitely don’t regret having you, ninety-nine per cent of the time).
This is Airbnb. Once upon a time, when you went away somewhere, you stayed in a hotel, a motel, or a bed-and-breakfast run by a talkative woman with chunky jewelry. Now you can stay in people’s homes. Sometimes Mommy daydreams about Daddy moving out, and the house being too big and lonely and expensive, so she rents a room to a charming couple from Australia who love you and provide free child care. Maybe they can even pretend you’re theirs when Mommy needs to drink and Tinder—just at the beginning, like, the first few dates with a guy or the first few years, so, you know, the guy won’t get freaked out.
This is Wikipedia. Remember when cousin John was building a fort out of books in Grandma’s basement at Thanksgiving? Those books were the Encyclopedia Britannica, and they were so heavy that when one dropped on cousin Alice’s foot, she broke her toe and Alice’s father said he would sue Uncle Patrick, and Uncle Patrick said it was an accident, and Alice’s father said, “Save it for the judge, bro.” Anyway, Wikipedia replaced all those heavy books! But there is a lot of incorrect information on Wikipedia. If you need to know something about history or science, it’s better to ask me or, as a last resort, Daddy.
This is TikTok. TikTok is . . . you know what? I got nothin’. No idea what it is. “Da-da”? Nope, Daddy definitely doesn’t know, though that wouldn’t stop him from mansplaining. Mansplaining is like last week, when Daddy told us which sponges and soaps were acceptable to use on his cast-iron pan, and how they interacted with the molecular structure of the natural nonstick finish, and then Mommy no longer wanted to clean the pan or cook with it but rather conk Daddy over the head and say, “Is the human skull also harmful to the molecules of the cast iron?”
This is Craigslist. Before you were born, when Mommy and Daddy didn’t have much money, they got a sofa from Craigslist. Mommy was hesitant, but Daddy said there was nothing to worry about—and, of course, he was wrong, and there were bedbugs, and we had to get the apartment fumigated, and Mommy had to burn her favorite sheets. And even though that was many, many years ago, Mommy still wonders if the fumigation is why it took you so long to learn to talk. But that could also just be Daddy’s genes.
