Can we talk about pee bottles please?
Not for my sake, you understand. I obviously have no need of such myself.
But I’m afraid the Great and All-Knowing FBA insists.
By which I mean the Great and All-Knowing Facebook Algorithm.
You see, for some time now, I’ve been running a little game on the G&AK FBA. Just for the sheer mischief of it.
But it’s not funny anymore.
In fact, it’s getting to be downright embarrassing. And I want it to stop before things get completely, um, out of hand.
I surrender, oh G&AK FBA!
Listen, it all started innocently enough.
I went on Amazon and bought a “smart” bicycle helmet.
One with built in flashing lights. And even turn and brake signals.
Because although I’ve gotten on in years, I am still cycling my butt off all over GNV. And I suppose that, with age, comes paranoia.
So I wanted to turn my entire head into a flashing “Please don’t kill me” billboard.
I thought that would be the end of it.
But the next thing I know, my Facebook feed was getting filled up with smart helmet ads. Helmets with all sorts of bells and whistles and options and stuff.
Thing is, my new smart helmet (Unit One if you must know) is not only the most expensive headgear I’ve ever owned. It is by itself perfectly adequate for my personal protection.
So why was the Great and All-Knowing FBA flooding me with ads from every other Tom, Dick and Harry seller of smart helmets?
Anyway, because my helmet cost me a pretty penny, I went back to Amazon and ordered a small cable lock especially designed to attach my expensive helmet to my bicycle frame to avoid theft.
Next thing I know, my Facebook feed was filling up with ads for specially made bicycle helmet locks.
Like I was gonna buy another one? Or another six?
And that’s where the mischief on my part began.
I figured what the hell. As long as the G&AK FBA was gonna screw with me, I was gonna screw back.
I began clicking on the most bizarre and obscure product ads I could find on my FB feed.
Like seat belt extender buckles (I am not making this up, they are apparently made for extra-wide-of-girth drivers). And camouflage bike racks. Presumably in case you’re running from the law through the woods and want to blend in.
It was fun at first. Never bought a thing. But the notion that I was in control of my very own Facebook ad feed gave me a whimsical sense of empowerment.
But that’s when the trouble started.
One day I saw a FB ad for a pee bottle.
Which is to say a bottle made for the express purpose of, you know, peeing into.
As opposed to, say, a bottle expressly made to drink water from. Or 12-year-old scotch.
I clicked on it. The devil made me do it.
The next thing I know, my FB feed was filling up with all manner of pee bottles. In all manner of colors and designs. Some of em even designed for members of the, um, opposite gender.
“The ultimate Dad gift he’ll actually use,” one promised.
“Holds three pees,” another boasted.
“Never need to stop driving for a pee stop again,” and so on.
(Disclaimer: I actually do use, you know, a bottle when I’m winter camping and hate like hell to leave my tent in the middle of a frigid night. But it never occurred to me that I had to buy one manufactured specifically for that purpose.)
It was a lark, really. Let em flood my feed with pee bottles. It wasn’t like somebody was holding a gun to my head and forcing me to actually buy one.
But then the G&AK FBA struck back.
Next thing I know I was getting FB ads for leak-proof boxer shorts. Really?
I guess the G&AK FBA thought that if I wasn’t going to buy a pee bottle I was just gonna…well, you know.
This was followed by ads for “portable” bidets. Wait! What?
And then for electric razors designed to smarten up my, um, boys, without snagging.
And then things got really strange.
Perhaps the FBA deduced that if I am suffering from you know what, I most likely had other problems you know where.
Which is when the ED ads began flooding in.
One promoted a spray-on that worked as well as three (count em) little blue pills.
This followed by a series of ads for a succession of bizarrely designed devices that – if strapped to my, um, person – promised to banish those old ED Blues once and for all.
Honest to Gawd! Looking at the ads I could even figure out how one would even go about strapping such devices to one’s, um, person.
And they kept on coming, One after another. Devices of increasingly more exotic and perplexing construction.
Which is why I now find myself making this personal plea to the G&AK FBA.
I surrender!
I was wrong!
Forgive me!
Please stop!
Send me ads for something else!
Anything else!
I don’t care.
Cyber fish hooks.
How to herd your earthworms to market kits.
Pills to cure my compulsive obsession with The Great DeSanitizer.
Anything!
Lesson learned, G&AK FBA.
Take pity.
Your humble carbon-based servant.
FreeGNV 