Mr. Faraway spends the summer coming and going, too – mostly, he travels to gaming weekends, often with his kids, where he takes hundreds of pictures of miniature troop movements that he posts on Facebook. I glance at the pictures, but there are too many and it’s hard to tell what is or isn’t supposed to be interesting, so in the end, none of it is.
When he visits, we will sometimes stop in a game shop to check it out, and in one of them, I discover the owner is actually a former coworker of mine, who got laid off and started the shop with his severance package. He was an IT guy, and knew what everyone did on their computer when they thought no one was looking, so I leave with some fun stories for other former coworkers of mine, but not a reason to go back to the store, nor any other game shop.
One of my favorite high school bands comes to town, and a friend announces it on Facebook. First live concert in 20 years! My girlfriend and I have seats, who wants to meet for drinks beforehand?
Other classmates jump on board, buying up pairs of tickets and posting about it while I confirm that it’s just not possible for Mr. Faraway to make it that particular evening.
I remind myself that I only liked a couple of that band’s songs, and that I’m really too old to go to concerts these days, and then I learn how to unfollow threads on Facebook.
Wait, miniature troop movements … like – the tiny toy soldiers I used to line up on the sand pile and blast their heads off with the BB gun?
Yes, only they’re wearing historically accurate uniforms and I don’t think there were any BB guns involved.