Stewart Finkle sat at his keyboard, typing away on his Facebook page. Within a minute of posting his latest update, his mother had already commented on his wall.
“When are you going to come see us?” she wrote in capital letters. It had nothing to do with what his post topic was even about.
Stewart was annoyed. He knew that he should have never let his family members friend him. They were all so nosey and intrusive. He had gotten himself into a dilemma. If he removed them, then a bitter battle would ensue within the family. He tried getting rid of them once before, but they became angry and weaseled their way back in. He toyed with the idea of restricting what they could see, but that would have had the same effect. He decided that his best option was to email his sister and ask for her advice.
Twenty minutes after sending out his email, she responded, writing:
Dear Stewie,
Why in the world would you friend your family members? Are you crazy? I think it’s too late to undo the damage. You’re just going to have to live with your mistake,
Love Marie
PS: When are you coming up to see me? I miss you.
Now he was really pissed off. He wanted his sister’s advice and he ended up with another guilt trip about not visiting someone. He returned to his Facebook page and noticed that he had a new message in his inbox. Stewart opened it, and as he expected, it was from his dad. It read:
Hey son, did you forget about us or something? Maybe we can hook up soon.
“Fuck this shit!” he yelled, slamming his hand down on his leg.
He pulled up his Facebook account and he deleted everything.
“What’s his problem?” the new prison guard asked the warden, who had been showing him around the facility.
The two men were standing outside of Stewart’s cell, staring in at the old man. Eighty two year old Stewart Finkle was sitting on the edge of his cot, focused on the blank wall in front of him.
“Stewart murdered his mother and father over forty years ago,” the warden replied. “They were chopped up and buried in their back yard. His sister was the only one who survived. He’s doing life without parole. About five years ago he started to lose his mind. He imagines that there’s a computer in his cell, and that he communicates with his family through Facebook and Gmail. Every day, just about this time, he gets frustrated and pretends to delete his account. Tomorrow morning it’ll start all over again.”
“I know he’s a murderer, but you have to feel for the guy,” the guard said, shaking his head in pity.
“You need to toughen up if you’re gonna make it around here,” the warden replied.
The two men moved on and left Stewart alone. A few minutes later the old man pretended to send another Email to his sister.
In Tacoma Washington, seventy nine year old, Marie Finkle Stein stared through her thick glasses at the computer screen. As expected, an email popped into her in box. It read:
Thanks for your help Marie. I’m sure that we’ll see each other someday soon,
Love Stewie.
