Ha Ha-ing

THE NICE FACEBOOK LADY who only steals magnolia blooms fron her neighbor's tree when she determines that the tree has "too many" blooms, is a digital picdture taking and posting machine. She takes pictures of all things and everything relating to her self absoprtion, including magnolia blooms in every stage of bloom, except at the end. She spares us that, but does not spare us an endless parade of swimming deck and cat pics, both of which might actually be hers, or might not. On Facebook, anything goes, and nobody knows. There is a certain wistful sadness associated with fading flowers, and above all else, she waxes positively cheerful. Her only pictoral omissions are pictures of her house, which she wisely refrains from taking or posting, and of herself. For this she substitutes pictures which seem to have been taken in the nineteen eighties or nineties, judging by her hair style, clothing style, and baby, which she says is now an attorney in his late twenties. But ever cheerful she is, and the magnolia blooms are forever young, ensconced in water and thriving, for the time being. He good cheer is So much so that no matter what she posts or says about it, she accompanies it with one of three expressions: "Ha"..."Ha Ha", or, and you guessed it: "Ha ha ha". Never an "lol", always the "ha ha's". She laughs at her own jokes, which is of course a social faux pas, but not other people's. This began to annoy me, and still does. Finally, after sustained reflection, I understand why. In early childhood, kids, being human, learn how to ridicule each other derisively. Its one of the first lessons they learn. Jealousy, and the perceived need to retaliate, evokes the sound which most closely resembles actual laughter; the onomatopoeia-ic "ha ha ha", which means "neener neener neener", or "I am making fun of you". I find her ha ha-ing annoying simply because I associate it with the pain of early, and sometimes late childhood, derisive ridicule. Gimme a good old fashonied "lol" any day of the week; the marveolus, neutral statement invented on AOL decades ago that simply says: "I am laughing out loud", or that I am giving "lots of laughs". So far I have been unable to convince her that stealing magnolias involves two crimes: criminal trespass, and theft of property. I've given up the ghost on that project and, if I'm smart, I won't even bother to try to get her to translate her ha ha into something a bit more palatable, and at least somewhat less derisive and childish lol.