By Carla Lancken

The day I was fired I came home, undressed, and went to bed for five years. They said I was too unproductive. Ha. I’ll show them unproductive. After watching thirty-six episodes of Midsomer Murders on Netflix, I got out my tablet, went on Facebook and started posting.

“Hi, all. Just wanted to let you know that I’m on vacation now. Traveling the world. I will be posting pics of all the places I visit.” I got 62 likes.

On the Internet, I found lovely pictures of Paris, Barcelona, Dublin, Sao Paulo, Rio, and Sydney to name a few. I saved them to my tablet and every few weeks posted pictures on my Facebook page with the caption: “I just love this place! So beautiful. Met some great people. Having a fantastic time.” Or something to that effect. 15 or 20 likes depending on the pic.

In Paris, I said I was having an affair with a handsome, sexy Frenchman named Jacques. We dined at the top of the Eiffel Tower one night. Picture of the night view, from tower. 20 likes.

I never answered my phone. Ordered everything in. Needless to say, I gained a great deal of weight, and my bed hole was getting desperately close to the floor. As time moved on I sunk lower and lower, my mattress a mere pad of its former self.

After a year of world travel, I posted that Jacques and I had decided to make our home in Tunis, Tunisia. I showed pictures of a quaint villa on the Mediterranean, not sure which country it was in but it was homey, and I got 20 likes. Then I had to find a photo of Jacques.

I was getting handy with Photoshop and learned to juxtapose previously good photos of me with a picture of a handsome man I found on Match.com. It was weird that he was always glancing to the left or standing in a suit, even on the beach. No matter. I still got likes.

Life was good for Jacques and me. Even stuck a picture of a baby girl in a carriage. Every year I found a new child to show her growth, while Jacques always looked to the left in a suit even though she was sometimes in the bathtub. Children always get likes.

Four years after we had settled down in Tunisia there was an unfortunate bombing in Tunis by terrorists, and my Facebook friends were asking if I was okay. I pretended Jacques’ mother had commandeered my account, announcing that Jacques and I perished in the bombing. I posted loads of flowers around a neatly printed notice that no funeral had been arraigned as yet, but donations for little Jackie could be sent to P.O. Box 1162 in Yonkers, NY 10793.

No likes, but the $1,354.50 came in handy for a new bed.