Fireflies

As I’ve talked about before, I feel like I’ve lost interest in a lot of things I used to do. Many things that used to bring me pleasure or frame my day just don’t anymore. Reading the newspaper. Doing the crossword. Reading a local parenting and chat website that I’ve been looking at all of Sarah’s life, and even before she was born. I just don’t get the same feeling of wanting to join in, or tick these items off my daily list.

Yesterday I did something I probably shouldn’t have done, but it cheered me up and gave me that little feeling of je ne sais quoi that has been lacking in my life lately. That zing of creativity and mild wickedness. I created a troll post on my local parenting and chat website. Not a mean or nasty post, but a fake post designed to draw responses and a bit of controversy. Troll posts happens a lot on that website because people post anonymously. The obvious trolls are shut down immediately and the pervs trolling to talk about kids and sex and so forth. You really have to set up a good troll post to ignite affronted responses but still remain in the realm of sanity. (I TRULY have not done this very often, but as you may realize by now, I have a fertile imagination.)

So I trolled as a mom whose daughter had an extreme fear of insects that we were trying to manage, but who wanted recommendations for how to kill all fireflies (and other insects) on her lawn for the entire summer in order to cater to the phobia. You can see how this would piss people off, since it involves the extermination of “beloved fireflies” as a number of respondents put it. I received quite a few screeds on the role of insects, pollinators, ecosystems, dangers of chemicals, cancer risks (all of which I agree with). I really stirred the shit pot, all in the Lawn and Garden Forum, which is typically rather placid.

So I really enjoyed this. I’m not sure quite why. Was it the fantasy of having a daughter with extreme needs again? Was it just the way I was cracking myself up at reading posts from wrought-up defenders of the Earth over a non-existent problem, begging me not to sterilize my lawn? Was it the whole idiotic scenario I had invented? Am I just deeply immature? Probably.

I don’t think I’ll make a habit of doing this but as I said, it brought me an undeniable feeling of zing and energy, which I guess is why trolls troll, pretty much. It also gave me a feeling of belonging again on that website. I was a mother again, albeit a screwball mother doing something preposterous to protect her child. I’m not sure where else to belong right now.