Me, the punchline.

I was just hitting puberty when the "Internet" became a big thing, brought to millions of American homes by AOL...

Chat Rooms where all the craze (before I found text-based roleplay) where strangers from all over the country could "communicate" back and forth in one computer window, under an array of usernames/handles/ScreenNames.

Being phonetically challenged and naive, I turned to my older sister to check my spelling before creating mine.

FlammingIce323

If I'd spent more time with a dictionary and less time playing with extreme temperatures, I might not have set myself up for such embarrassment. Alas, hallow confidence in a "cool" ScreenName I poked around several of the chatrooms until I saw one called "Ask Me Anything"

What pre-teen wouldn't jump into that chatroom?

Online Host: FlammingIce323 has entered the room

"FLAMMINGICE323 WHAT'S FLAMMING?"

"Hey u flamming ice r ya?"

"Who taught u how to spell?"

It took me a moment to adjust my eyes to bright colors, bold fonts and tiny but punctuated fonts. Sadly, it wasn't until one of them questioned my spelling that I realized they where mocking me, so I grabbed a The Dictionary.

Flaming. The word I was aiming for was "Flaming" and for some reason I thought it looked more correct with two M's.

It wasn't the only time I put myself in the line of fire like a neon sign that said "cannon fodder!" Yo-Yo-ing through emotions I didn't understand, in a family I didn't relate to, I was inspired to give into what I considered morbid humor.

Call me foolish

This time, I made sure I spelled it correctly, and this time when I entered the "Ask Me Anything" room, I was certain no one would ask such stupid questions.

Online Host: Call me foolish has entered the room

"Foolish"

"foolish!"

"FOOLISH"

"foooooooooooooooooooooooooooolish"

"foolish hahahahahah"

"how foolish r u?"

"foolish"

Before I could even answer the first and only question asked of me since I entered, there was a bomb of foolishness thrown at me-- which I missed because I was typing, a reply others missed in the debris because I hit "enter" in the middle of the explosion...

"foolish"

Call me foolish: Depends on who's asking.

"foolish"

"WHY U WANT TO B CALLED FOOLISH?"

"foolish"

"IGNORE _so-n-so_ they r just a troll scrolln"

"foolish"

While I'm trying to re-type my answer, with an answer for the second question, I notice someone else telling me to ignore the person who keeps typing "foolish" and entering it into the chatroom because they're "just a troll." As I'm hunting for this "ignore" feature (which hadn't been incorporated yet) I see the "foolish" posting continue.

"foolish"

"UR BOTH FOOLISH"

"foolish"

I don't even get a chance to reply, the seemingly endless string of "foolish" created some kind of glitch which crashed the room.

How was I supposed to know the internet came with Trolls?

--and how did a Troll type so fast? Or crash the chatroom?

|| another_proser ||