Man Feels Bad for Friend’s Dead Dog for 12 Seconds
By Stuart Swanson
Article II
June 27th, Current Year
Seemingly nice guy Stuart Swanson felt bad for a
moment on Tuesday when he briefly scrolled past his
friend’s extremely lengthy Facebook post about his
brand new dead dog. At first, he thought it was just
another picture of some random dog that was still alive, but then he noticed a sad emoji, and realized what kind of post it was.
He thought about that while he continued to furiously
scroll past at least 14 more posts. Then, opportunity
knocked and he realized he could score some points
with not only his friend, but everyone in general. Yes, he could easily post a thoughtful response talking about how happy his friend’s dog was, and how he had the best possible life, even though he never met the dog and wasn’t even that close with his friend, actually.
Gallantly, Mr. Swanson started to scroll back up to
the post. He got sidetracked because another post
caught his attention. “Oh man, how did I not see that? That’s hilarious!” Then he got his serious face back on, and said, I’ve got work to do. He arrived to his friend’s post, and started to read the words beneath the picture.
After reading just one thought-provoking sentence that
reminded him of his own problems, he noticed the
“Continue Reading” was coming up already, and he
exclaimed quietly “I’ve seen enough, I’m posting.”
Stuart Swanson then spent 2 hours typing up response
after response, deleting, rearranging, and rewriting
the whole thing. He was pretty sure his wife said
something to him about an hour ago, but he wasn’t sure
because he was really fixated on saying the right
thing on a post that would only be seen by people he
didn’t even know, plus his really sad friend.
He read his comment, which turned out to be longer
than his friend’s original post. It had empathy
written all over it, with phrases like “I’m
devastated” and “I don’t think I’m going to be able to
go try out for that Over 40 Softball team later this
afternoon, because I’m just crushed. I’d post a
picture of my tears, but this isn’t about me, this is
about ______. (look up dog name later)”
Finally, he completed the dog’s name, removed the
reminder, and posted. Then, just moments after posting this heart-warming comment, Stuart Swanson had no choice but to continue scrolling through Facebook, and within just 6 seconds, again saw the funny viral video of a different dog scooting his bum across a dinner table. Overcome with instant joy, he immediately joined the other 6,000 commenters by mindlessly posting “LOL! That’s Hilarious!!!” which ultimately showed up on his sad friend’s newsfeed just as he started to read how devastated Stuart Swanson was 12 seconds ago.
That’s actually the end of the story.