Y’all know I love Facebook. I don’t really think it’s like a nosey neighbor. Heck, you don’t have to be nosey to see details of my life on Facebook…I’m putting them out there myself.

But yesterday, my clever, witty friend, Mary Ann, posted this on Facebook:

Facebook is like having nosey neighbors who don’t really like you. They just stay connected to look over the fence and see what you’re doing.

Before I continue, I must say I prefer it to be spelled “nosy,” so that’s how it will be spelled from here on in this piece.

It wasn’t Mary Ann’s original creation. She got it from a site called Kitchen Fun With My 3 Sons. First of all, it made me laugh, and then it made me think. Aren’t we all peering through a window or over a fence into each other’s lives on Facebook? The difference between looking over a fence or peering into a window and Facebook, though, is that, on social media, we control what other people see about our lives. If you have a peeping Tom or a nosy neighbor, you don’t always know what they see, and you can’t always control it.

About ten years ago, a friend (I’m keeping her name private, to protect the innocent) moved to a new house. She left behind some beloved neighbors, and when she settled into her new home, she discovered her new next-door neighbor was Gladys Kravitz. If you don’t know who Gladys Kravitz is, you never watched the television show, Bewitched. On the show, Mrs. Kravitz was the ultimate nosy neighbor. So my friend’s neighbor wasn’t actually Gladys Kravitz, but she was a real-life, 21st century version of her.

They had a privacy fence between the backyards of the two houses, and occasionally, when my friend was outside, she would catch a glimpse of “Mrs. Kravitz” peering over the fence or between the slats. One day, she called me and said, “I wish I could think of something to shock her.” Well, she had come to the right friend! It became my mission to find the perfect thing to shock Mrs. Kravitz. Sure, we could have gone with a life-size nude statue. But that would have been a little heavy…and probably expensive. Instead, we devised a plan.

My friend went to her local discount store and purchased a rotary clothesline, putting it up in her backyard. (You can purchase them at Amazon here.)I went online to search for the perfect thing to hang on it. I knew I’d be able to find it somewhere, because years before, my brother had caught some that were tossed from a Mardi Gras float in Mobile. After some searching, I found it, ordered it, and had it shipped to my friend.

When she received the package, she called me, laughing hysterically. I said, “Go hang them up! Hurry! I want Gladys Kravitz to see them the next time she looks over there! But you have to sit outside till you get her reaction.”

And she did. She walked outside, and on the clothesline, she hung up the most gigantic pair of red panties one could ever imagine…so big that no one could possibly wear them.

She called me and said, “It’s done! Those panties look like a big ol’ butt-shaped flag flapping in the breeze!” And she waited. After an hour or so, she heard Gladys Kravitz walk out her back door. Mrs. Kravitz was talking on the phone as she wandered around her yard. My friend was sitting out of sight, but she called me as soon as she heard Mrs. Kravitz. After a few minutes, she knew Mrs. Kravitz had peeked over the fence, because she heard her say to whoever was on the other end of the phone line, “My word! You wouldn’t believe what’s hanging in my crazy neighbor’s yard!”

We laughed and laughed, even though my friend had to keep down the volume of her laughter. I remember her whispering, “I’m the crazy neighbor! I always wanted to be the crazy neighbor!” But Mrs. Kravitz had no idea those gigantic panties had been hung outside for her viewing pleasure. My friend eventually took down the panties, but she left them up long enough for Mrs. Kravitz to get angry about them. She knew she was angry, because she would hear her grumbling through the fence. Unfortunately, this was before every cell phone in America was a smart phone, so there is no photographic evidence.

When I saw Mary Ann’s post about how Facebook is like having nosy neighbors, I responded, “The key lies in giving them PLENTY to look at! You wanna peek over the fence? I’ll give you a reason to peek over the fence!”

But of course, I love Facebook. I don’t think of my Facebook friends as nosy neighbors. I love that they share their lives with me, and I love sharing mine too. After all, when I run into them, we don’t have to do the cocktail party chat. We can converse about real life…or at least the life we put on Facebook. And we can laugh about our nosy neighbors!

***If you have a nosy neighbor you’d like to shock, you can purchase Big Momma Panties at Amazon.com here.***

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