The walk of shame

A number of questions were posed to me via email, text, Twitter and comments following yesterday’s post about possibly the most mortifying photo to ever be mistakenly posted to Instagram in the history of history.

The number-one question was: “Is it still out there? Please tell me you did not delete it.”

INTERNET. I cannot TELL you how fast I stampeded to my photo stream to delete that picture once I found out I HAD a stream and that pictures could be deleted. I mean, it was gone in three seconds flat. Because you read my blog, I imagine you all couldn’t get there fast enough yesterday, looking for a picture of my butthole. Sorry to disappoint, but it’s long gone. You people are terrible. P.S. I would have done the exact same thing.

2. “How many people do you think saw it?”

This question, I have no answer for. I hope and pray it was limited to the one person who asked what it was, but I imagine more people saw it and just assumed it was another one of my crazy pictures. (If you knew what it was when you saw it, you’d be repulsed. But if you didn’t know, you might have thought it was, I don’t know, really bad scar tissue from knee surgery or something. Or perhaps that’s just wishful thinking.) You see, since I didn’t know that there was a stream and the pictures were public, I posted tons of ridiculous pictures, although thankfully ONLY THE ONE of any of my orifices. As a matter of fact, longtime reader Ryan Leigh said once, “You know, I wondered why you post all those pictures of Nick’s homework.”

Because yes, I always took pictures of Nick’s spelling and math homework (usually a matching game) so I could print them out and tape them to a larger piece of paper to turn in each Friday. It was his proof that he had done the exercises, and I thought I was so smart because if I used Instagram instead of my regular phone camera, the images were the perfect size to print out pictures that would fit five-to-six to a page. Can you imagine what people thought when I posted five pictures of spelling and math homework a week for nine months to my Instagram feed? Quite frankly, it’s amazing I don’t have minus-0 followers, because AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FO’DAT.

3. “How did you not know how Instagram really worked?”

Okay, nobody actually asked me this one, but I feel the need to answer. I read NOTHING about the app when I downloaded it. No tutorials, no “About” screen within the app itself, no conversations with friends who had it … and no one ever asked me my screen name or offered me theirs. Therefore, I was totally insulated from helpful information. I'm savvy like that, in that I like to know absolutely nothing about new technology before I begin using it on a thrice-daily basis.

I never pressed any of the other icons on the home screen; I only pressed the Camera button to take the picture and then email it to myself or post it to Twitter. Hand to God, I thought those were the options. OH HOW WRONG I WAS. But I didn’t KNOW I was ignorant. Yesterday I re-read a post I did on Instagram shortly after I downloaded it, and it was full of ridiculous foreshadowing such as “This week I think I finally got it all figured out.” That was May 2011. Uh huh.

4. “Did you post any other embarrassing pictures?”

Not that I remember. CERTAINLY not of any other body parts or anything. But when I discovered the feed and the fact that I had followers, I did go back and delete probably 200 or more photos from the feed. I took out all of Nick’s homework, a picture of the entire exterior of our house, and countless – COUNTLESS – pointless pictures of just junk. Us piddling around the den, eating meals … driving around in the car. I LITERALLY SHUDDER to think of what else I might have posted, though. Good Lord, I know I’ve taken pictures of rashes and who knows what else to send to my friend Honor, a nurse practitioner, to ask her what might be wrong with any member of our family. God forbid I had a boil on my ladybits, because that probably would’ve ended up on the Internet, too.

5. And last, but not least, as Rachel so eloquently asked via Twitter yesterday, “You’re assuming someone would WANT to follow you on Instagram after that post?? REALLY???”

{And let’s all just take a moment and admire the excessive punctuation Rachel used there so effectively. She truly, TRULY illustrated her incredulity through the use of five question marks. Bravo, Rachel, BRAVO.*}

No, I really don’t. But then again, I wouldn’t have thought that anyone would have been following me on Instagram PRIOR to that post, either. And yet. Some people clearly have no standards, is the best I can come up with. However, if you DO want to follow me on Instagram and were frustrated to the point of despair that I didn’t include my screen name in either of this week’s posts about that very topic, you can search for me as grass_stains_the_blog. And don’t worry … I’ve learned my lesson. No more pictures of my butt.

* If you’re new here, sarcasm is my friend. So is Rachel.