The Story Kyle and the ^^^CrappySappy/NationalFriendshipWeek.html">National Friendship Week
This meme has been going around since 2000.
It is an immense ripoff of as well as ridiculous exaggeration of a short story by John W. Schlatter called "A Simple Gesture," that appears in the 1993 book Chicken Soup for the Soul. Mr. Schlatter did not write the story of Kyle or that phoney Friendship Week stuff.
The internet chain letter borrows the plot and distorts it, plus changes the names of the characters, or at least one character's name, from Bill to Kyle. It changes the third person telling to that of first person. Verious versions of the chain don't even mention the story or its author from which it steals and then angsts the plot out the wazoo.
Mr. Schlatter's Bill doesn't get his books knocked out of his hands by a gang of bullies, he trips over his own feet and looses hold of the stack and there's no indication anyone else was around to see this.
In the chain letter version, the bullies make Kyle lose his books.
In Schlatter's story, Mark and Bill don't spend an entire weekend together, only one afternoon, and Mark does not cause Bill to be part of a close-knit group of friends, nor do Mark and Bill become best buds, but remain little more than acquaintances.
Kyle, in the chain version, gets to spend a whole weekend with the chain originator, who manages to get all his other friends to adopt Kyle into their little circle, and Kyle and the chain originator become best buds.
In John Schlatter's story, the revelation that Bill had been close to suicide when Mark came along was found out by the readers in a private conversation between Bill and Mark.
In the chain letter version, Kyle reveals this and builds his valedictorian speech completely around the heroics of the chain letter originator who had once done the unbelievably unthinkable and dared to be friends with him, thereby, saving him from suicide.
Schlatter's story is meant to be inspirational, but the chain letter attempts to make people feel as if they're not doing enough for mankind and that by simply being friends with every seeming loner, they could be saving lives, oh, and of course, they should pass it on.
I'm not a fan of the Chicken Soup series, but must say that I'd definitely prefer John W. Schlatter's honestly written, more realistic story to this incredibly gooped up glurge.
In addition to the story-steal&distort all to heck, it is also one of those "National Friendship Week" chain hoaxes. There is no National Friendship Week, and Breakthechain has these great things to say about this particular forward.
"Ahh, friendship. It's a wonderful thing. Makes you just want to forward every piece of crap you get in your inbox to all your buddies, just to show you care, doesn't it?
Anyway, doesn't it reflect poorly on a person if it takes a specially designated week for him to appreciate his friends? What's wrong with writing a personal note every once in a while, just because you want to? Certainly, that's more meaningful than some impersonal e-mail forward that instructs you to show your friends how much you care.
In a recent poll of Break the Chain visitors, friendship chains were ranked as the most annoying type of e-mail chain letter. Most people would prefer one personally written note from a friend every few weeks over a mass-forwarded piece of super sweet garbage every day. Break this "Circle of Friends," and I'm sure you'll find your friends will be a bit more friendly to you. Break this chain."
Amen to that!
Now, let's trounce this meme!.
* * *
🧐Meme: The Story of Kyle
🤦🏽♀️BP Oh, goodie. *flat expression*
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And the story of how it all got wrecked.
🧐Meme: Let's see if you send it back. We all know or knew someone like this!!
🤦🏽♀️BP Uh, so, wait a sec. There is more than one person in this story. Do you mean we all know someone like Kyle? Or someone like you? Or the bullies? You're probably talking about Kyle...whose real name isn't even Kyle...but I wouldn't put it past you to make this whole drip about you.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Argh! You know, these stupid friendship glurge chains are all the same with this "Send it back to the one who sent it to you" crap. Honestly, who wants tons of copies of the same dreadful chain letters? If everybody did exactly that, these glurges would literally crash the net, and more people than not would be wishing their friends weren't such morons and would quit sending back copies and copies and copies of the same stupid forwards!
🧐Meme: This is one that's worth reading.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Only you really don't want to stop at just reading, what you really want is for this chain to get passed on to others, sent back to you, whoever you are, and for all people I spam this thing to, sending it back to me in an eternal loop of ever-growing spam!
🤦🏽♀️BP *disparaging snort* Yeah right! You mean this one's worth passing! Well, tough it up, Buttercup! I'm not sendin'!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I remember getting this story ages ago and didn't appreciate it, or so many others like it, because it just isn't cool getting attempted emotional tear-jerkers from friends when all one wants instead are personally written notes. Seriously, my life didn't feel much improved after reading it and I was left wondering where the heck this story, completely unrelated to my friend's personal life, came from. Sure, the first few forwards from friends got to me in the very beginning, but very soon, I got seriously sick of it and refused to let these forwards push my emotional buttons any longer.
🧐Meme: Smile at someone today, and tomorrow and the next day, and the next......
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Well, you won't be getting one of my smiles. I will smile or not smile at whoever I feel like, today, tomorrow or any other day, so there.
🤦🏽♀️BP Hey, my smiles aren't just little tickets you can hand out, pally! I smile at whoever I wanna smile at, got it?
🧐Meme: One day, when I was a freshman in high school,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You had a big OMG life-changing experience, or such is the way you're going to tell it.
🤦🏽♀️BP *gasp!* Like, oh my gosh, no way! Wait, you weren't done yet? Coulda fooled me...
🧐Meme: I saw a kid from my class was walking home from school.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: No, like, REALLY!? Wow! Amazing! Is this going somewhere? Oh, right, home from school.
🤦🏽♀️BP Waht? Tahts like totallies unpossible! Like who da hek walks home from da skool?
🧐Meme: His name was Kyle.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And here we go, enter stage left, Kyle, as the lights come on and the soap opera music starts playing.
🤦🏽♀️BP Hey, do you hear that? I could of sworn I heard a violin playing somewhere...
🧐Meme: It looked like he was carrying all of his books.
🤦🏽♀️BP Like totally no way! Imagine that!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Truly mind-blowing! Kyle carries all his books, so what about you? any books for you?
🧐Meme: I thought to myself, "Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You really can't figure this one out? Maybe he had a load of homework all due at the beginning of the next week!
🤦🏽♀️BP Uh, maybe 'cause he had homework! You nitwit. Lemme guess, you don't worry about that kind of stuff.
🧐Meme: He must really be a nerd."
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: and I suppose you're a partier who next to fails because you don't study nearly enough?
🤦🏽♀️BP Yup. I was right.
🧐Meme: I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friends tomorrow afternoon), so I shrugged my shoulders and went on.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: BINGO!
🤦🏽♀️BP So, you planned on skippin' out on your homework and partying? Wow, what a winner!
🧐Meme: As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Music changes to something overly dramatic as the cast of cliche bullies as plot devices appear on the scene just in the nick of time.
🤦🏽♀️BP Oooh, I'm so scared.
🧐Meme: They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Okay, I have to ask, this is high school right? Not elementary? Because these dummies are acting more like grade 4 than grade 10/12.
🤦🏽♀️BP Ha! Shows what you know! High school bullies are a different breed from that sort. High school bullies are more the call you horrible names, smear campaign, shove you in a locker, direct attacks at self-esteem kind. Shoving you in the dirt is far more...elementary, or even middle school.
🧐Meme: His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Right, gotta make sure I'm aware he has glasses because bullies love picking on people with glasses...
🤦🏽♀️BP *rolls eyes* Yeah, 'cause everyone who wears glasses is a pathetic little wimp who needs help...I'll have you know I wear glasses, and I'll give you a heck of a smackin' if you get on my bad side! I can MORE than handle myself!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Haha, no kidding!
🧐Meme: He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And a scowl from me if you care to look my way. Yeah, I hate bullies. If you're looking to tick me off with a story about bullying, it's working. But I still won't pass it on to make someone else's spirits dip.
🤦🏽♀️BP Yeah, work it Mark! Just milk it for all its worth.
🧐Meme: My heart went out to him. So, I jogged over to him as he crawled around looking for his glasses, and I saw a tear in his eye.
🤦🏽♀️BP Oh, yes, can't forget the tear! What would it be without that tear?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Argh! Cut the attempted emotional tripping already, I get it, he's sad, you're the only decent kid in the school or so you claim, and - just - aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!
🧐Meme: As I handed him his glasses, I said, "Those guys are jerks. "
🤦🏽♀️BP Well no DUH, Sherlock!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And I bet you felt all smug and proud of yourself deep down for being such a hero too. *Rolling eyes*
🧐Meme: They really should get lives.
🤦🏽♀️BP Um, thanks for the update Captain Obvious.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, so you're telling me all this because?
🧐Meme: " He looked at me and said, "Hey thanks!"
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And thus began the epic STORY OF KYLE!
🤦🏽♀️BP Zzzzzz...*wakes up with a snort* I'm sorry, is this still going on?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Lol Unfortunately! This chain is a bit long-winded, but then, it's glurge. I think that comes with the territory.
🧐Meme: There was a big smile on his face.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Sheesh, are you going to describe in endless detail every little change of expression and every tear drop etc again? Because I really don't care after getting far too many of these attempted heart-yanking forwards. This one is particularly rotten considering the huge emotional wallop you have coming up later in this story.
🤦🏽♀️BP Good gosh, are you going to tell me about everything? "And then a little muscle on his face twitched. And I said "Nice twitch." And he just exploded with gratitude." *flat expression*
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Roflol!
🧐Meme: It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude.
🤦🏽♀️BP Yeah right!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, um, well, again, I have to ask, is this high school? Usually people try not to show much emotion either way in front of their peers.
🧐Meme: I helped him pick up his books, and asked him where he lived.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Point taken, you want me to know all about your total awesomeness.
🤦🏽♀️BP Get on with it! I'm gettin' old here!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Hahahaha!
🧐Meme: As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him why I had never seen him before.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I can guess why, like, maybe it's a big school and you just don't see and get to know every student. But you're probably going to tell me something really angsty.
🤦🏽♀️BP Yeah, yeah, listen kid! There are going to be people in your school you've never seen and never will see. High school is big. It just works out that way.
🧐Meme: He said he had gone to private school before now.
🤦🏽♀️BP Hrm. Well, I guess that works.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, private school. Okay, that'll do it. But let me guess, he got bullied, the teachers thought it was his fault and kicked him out.
🧐Meme: I would have never hung out with a private school kid before.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Wha? Well, I can see if you didn't just because the opportunity wasn't there, but you made it sound like this was an actual choice you made, to not hang out with private school kids, even from your neighbourhood. Not looking so cool.
🤦🏽♀️BP Uh, 'cause you go to different schools, or because you have something against private school kids?
🧐Meme: We talked all the way home, and I carried some of his books.
🤦🏽♀️BP Yeah, yeah, good for you. Not.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Yawn* I get it, I get it, you're Mr. Wonderful. Are we there yet?
🧐Meme: He turned out to be a pretty cool kid.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And I can just tell that was the last thing you were expecting…
🤦🏽♀️BP What a total surprise! One of the kids who doesn't party non-stop is actually cool! What a totally amazing discovery!
🧐Meme: I asked him if he wanted to play a little football with my friends
🤦🏽♀️BP Blah, blah, blah...
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And he probably told you he couldn't so you and your friends showed him how, right?
🧐Meme: He said yes.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, okay. *Yawn*
🤦🏽♀️BP Zzzzzzz...
🧐Meme: We hung out all weekend and the more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him, and my friends thought the same of him.
🤦🏽♀️BP Zzzz...*snore*
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Funny how that can sometimes happen. at least trying to get strangers together didn't backfire on you. Oh, right, it couldn't possibly, since you're so awesome that everybody just gets along when they're around you… *Rolling eyes*
🧐Meme: Monday morning came, and there was Kyle with the huge stack of books again.
🤦🏽♀️BP *wakes up* What, huh? Did I doze off again? ...And you're still going? Maybe you oughta take a hint...
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Is this going to be a repeat of Friday?
🧐Meme: I stopped him and said, "Boy, you are gonna really build some serious muscles with this pile of books everyday!
🤦🏽♀️BP So what if he carries his books? Lots of kids carry their books every day!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Dude, it's not uncommon for a high school student to carry a load of books. But you just like partying and playing football, so what do you know about it? Oh, wait, you just wanted me to know how complimentary you're being to this Kyle. Another indirect way of saying "Hey, look at me, being so nice to this kid! I'm awesome!"
🧐Meme: " He just laughed and handed me half the books.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: So you're best buds now. Goody for you.
🤦🏽♀️BP Whatever...
🧐Meme: Over the next four years, Kyle and I became best friends.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, this must be a grade 9/12 instead of 10/12. Oh well, *yawn*
🤦🏽♀️BP So, what, this is one of those 9-12 high schools? Meh.
🧐Meme: When we were seniors we began to think about college.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Even you? Gosh, Kyle must've had a good influence on you.
🤦🏽♀️BP That IS typically what seniors do...
🧐Meme: Kyle decided on Georgetown and I was going to Duke.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Whatever.
🤦🏽♀️BP Ha! Like you'd ever get into Duke!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Hehehehe!
🧐Meme: I knew that we would always be friends, that the miles would never be a problem.
🤦🏽♀️BP Yeah, yeah, because there's this thing called the Internet! Which you happen to be abusing for the spreading of this crap!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Sigh* Enough with the sap already.
🧐Meme: He was going to be a doctor and I was going for business on a football scholarship.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I thought football had to figure into it somewhere for you.
🤦🏽♀️BP Oh, please. Ten bucks says you flunk out.
🧐Meme: Kyle was valedictorian of our class.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Naturally… Does he also have a lightning scar on his forehead? And the bullies flunked out, right?
🤦🏽♀️BP Blah, blah, blah! I'm gonna take another nap, 'kay? Wake me when this is over.
🧐Meme: I teased him all the time about being a nerd.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Of course you did…
🤦🏽♀️BP *mumbling in sleep*
🧐Meme: He had to prepare a speech for graduation.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: All part of being a valedictorian, you know. Duh.
🤦🏽♀️BP *snore*
🧐Meme: I was so glad it wasn't me having to get up there and speak
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Somehow I find that hard to believe. But - if you say so…I'll bet everyone else was relieved you wouldn't be speaking. Well, everyone except perhaps your best little sidekick - uh - buddy Kyle, that is.
🤦🏽♀️BP *Still sleeping* *cough, cough* Bullcrap! *cough cough*
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Splutters and bursts out laughing!*
🧐Meme: Graduation day, I saw Kyle.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: with him as valedictorian and you part of the graduating class, you'd pretty much have to. Sheesh, talk about plot-drag.
🤦🏽♀️BP *wakes up a little* Man, this is still going on? *dozes*
🧐Meme: He looked great.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Generally people do at their grad…
🤦🏽♀️BP *snore, snuffle*
🧐Meme: He was one of those guys that really found himself during high school.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And let me guess, all because he met you, I suppose. Blech.
🤦🏽♀️BP *yawn*
🧐Meme: He filled out and actually looked good in glasses.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Argh! You are such a drip! Lots of people look good in glasses! The glasses don't make the person or determine if they're good looking or not! Now shut up, you're making me sick!
🤦🏽♀️BP *wakes up* Did I sleep through it? NO?! For the love of all that is good, shut up!
🧐Meme: He had more dates than I had and all the girls loved him.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Well, he was probably more the type, you know, studying, nerdy stuff, maybe took the time to go out to movies with them while you partied and played football. Maybe the girls went more for the studious one than the swaggering brute. Nah, they went for Kyle because he's such a Gary Stu, by your own design.
🤦🏽♀️BP And I bet that just ate you up.
🧐Meme: Boy, sometimes I was jealous!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Bingo! another totally predictable element of this tale.
🤦🏽♀️BP Big surprise.
🧐Meme: Today was one of those days.
🤦🏽♀️BP Blah...
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Assuming this was the day of the grad, and you're jealous of his good looks and his popularity with the girls? Dude, seriously... Get a life!
🧐Meme: I could see that he was nervous about his speech.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Uh, your observing him to the point of obsession is creepy.
🤦🏽♀️BP *cough* Stalker! *cough*
🧐Meme: So, I smacked him on the back and said, "Hey, big guy, you'll be great!"
🤦🏽♀️BP Oh, yeah, 'cause of course YOU'RE never nervous. You're the big awesome super duper buddy!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Right, just gotta make sure I know how you continue to build him up and build him up so that I'll have no doubt in my mind how great and altruistic and awesome you think you are, and how right it is to think that way because the great Kyle thinks so too! Yuck! Argh!
🧐Meme: He looked at me with one of those looks (the really grateful one) and smiled.
🤦🏽♀️BP Get over yourself!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Dude, can it already, you're creepy and you seem to be wanting admiration way too much!
🧐Meme: " Thanks," he said.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Gah, whatever…!
🤦🏽♀️BP I get it, okay?!
🧐Meme: As he started his speech, he cleared his throat, and began
🤦🏽♀️BP Oh, for the love-!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, for goodness sake! Now you're going to document every single ahem as well? Dude, you scare me. I hope you never try to save me from something, because I don't want some stalkerish hero-wanna-be on my hands.
🧐Meme: "Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you make it through those tough years."
🤦🏽♀️BP Um...not so much. Graduation is about a new stage of life, not about dripping all over people.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: If this Kyle gives you a great big verbal bootlicking as his graduation speech, I will hurl!
The thanking normally goes to the people in charge of putting on the ceremony, and graduation is about entering a new period in your life, out of and beyond high school. The valedictorian I heard speaking at the last grad ceremony I attended saved a few general thank you for the end of his speech and talked about school life as a movie to which now the sequel was about to begin.
🧐Meme: "Your parents, your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach...but mostly your friends…"
🤦🏽♀️BP Lies!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Ugh, this is lame. Not everybody is friends with the valedictorian, so to be among the exclusive number of friends to get the most thanks, or to not be included, well, yeah, this speech isn't starting out well.
🧐Meme: "I am here to tell all of you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them."
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Blech. What does this have to do with the theme of graduation and starting a new life?
🤦🏽♀️BP So not a proper speech...
🧐Meme: "I am going to tell you a story."
🤦🏽♀️BP A good story, maybe, but this? Nope.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: There was a story told at the grad ceremony I attended last, but it was not told by the valedictorian. It was one of the school staff, maybe the principal, I can't remember for sure.
🧐Meme: I just looked at my friend with disbelief as he told the story of the first day we met.
🤦🏽♀️BP Okay, seriously? Weird.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Gagging* Someone got a bucket to spare? Seriously, this is horrendous! No valedictory speech I've heard ever centred on one person in this way or mentioned anything seriously wrong that happened in high school life. What if some of the bullies were there at this grad? Not to show them any sympathy, but to recount something they did 3, oh, excuse me - 4 years ago to unwittingly make this chain letter originator a hero and jumpstart a super dooper buddy buddy relationship that really has nothing to do with the rest of the student body or the grad at all - just, blech!
🧐Meme: He had planned to kill himself over the weekend.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, finally, the big OMG moment, the crux of this whole sorry thing, and again, not something to be confessed in a valedictory speech.
🤦🏽♀️BP Okay, that is NOT something you tell the entire graduating class!
🧐Meme: He talked of how he had cleaned out his locker so his Mom wouldn't have to do it later and was carrying his stuff home.
🤦🏽♀️BP Again, not right! NOT RIGHT!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Okay, seriously messed up speech. Not something the parents or rest of his family would want to hear about, and it makes no sense this guy would spill it all here at this occasion which is supposed to be a celebration, not a kind of soul-sharing session. What a self-serving, narcissistic excuse of a graduation speech.
🧐Meme: He looked hard at me and gave me a little smile.
🤦🏽♀️BP Oh, gimme a bucket!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I just threw up a little in my mouth.
🧐Meme: "Thankfully, I was saved."
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah yeah, if not for this chain originator, Kyle wouldn't have made it to graduation, I get it. Still it's not appropriate as a grad speech, and I'm so dang sick of you telling me how Kyle worships you so much and how he totally wouldn't have amounted to a hill of beans without you making him into the amazingly awesome dude he is!
🤦🏽♀️BP And here comes the vomit.
🧐Meme: "My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable."
🤦🏽♀️BP So you *gag* figured this was the time to say thank *gag* you?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: So, Kyle, you thought you could use this venue to tell all and glorify your one friend for doing something pretty average just because he caught you on a bad bad bad bad weekend? And now pretty soon the shocked and tearful reactions are going to be written out in great detail, I suppose…
🧐Meme: I heard the gasp go through the crowd as this handsome, popular boy told us all about his weakest moment.
🤦🏽♀️BP Excuse me, this is just too much...
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Facepalm* which, again, was hardly appropriate as a valedictory speech that's meant to inspire everyone whatever their life experiences are, to move ahead. This wasn't a real valedictory speech, it was a testimony to the glory of one individual and a revelation about another's sad emotional state. Nothing connected with graduation, nothing that can speak to everyone in any way but for the shock value perhaps, and that's not what graduation is about.
🧐Meme: I saw his Mom and dad looking at me and smiling that same grateful smile.
🤦🏽♀️BP Wow! Way to steal the whole graduation!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Right, Kyle's eternally grateful to you. His family, every single one of them, is eternally ever grateful, to *you*. Aaaaaaaaaaagggggggggghhhhhhh! Make it stop! *Grabs bucket and hurls* Sorry about that. *Cough, cough*
Somehow I can't imagine them just smiling after that. But, the most important thing, of course, is not so much they were shocked over Kyle's frail psychological state they probably never knew about until now. The real issue is, Kyle smiled at you in gratitude, his parents smiled at you in that same gratitude. You have just become the complete focus of a valedictory speech that was supposed to relate to the whole school! You are a Gary Stu supreme and I'll punch your freaking lights out if you don't - shut - the - heck - up!
🧐Meme: Not until that moment did I realize it's depth.
🤦🏽♀️BP Ha! Yeah, whatever!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I think you're better acquainted with emotional depth than you try to let on. No, I don't mean that in a positive light.
And one more thing.
*POW!*
🧐Meme: Never underestimate the power of your actions.
🤦🏽♀️BP Common sense, dumbbell...
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Gah, who needs chain letters telling you that? Oh, wait, you were really talking about your own actions. *Rolling eyes*
🧐Meme: With one small gesture you can change a person's life.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I am well aware of that, experience has taught me a few things.
🤦🏽♀️BP Uh, most people who have been alive know that.
🧐Meme: For better or for worse.
🤦🏽♀️BP DUH.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Again, experience. And getting this kind of guck from friends is definitely for the worse.
🧐Meme: God puts us all in each others lives to impact one another in some way.
🤦🏽♀️BP Oh no you don't!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! Don't bring God into this!
🧐Meme: Look for God in others.
🤦🏽♀️BP Look, pally, stop trying to religious guilt trip people!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You may or may not find him there, all depending on the person and on you, but you won't find God in chain letters that misuse his name as a hook to get religious people right where it feels so they'll do exactly what the viral originator intended them to do all along!
🧐Meme: You now have two choices,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, like in the ^^^Scummy/ShayMeme.html">Home Run Shaya story chain I suppose.
🤦🏽♀️BP *rolls eyes* Yeah, sure...
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Spare me your so-called "choices" I'll make my own instead of give into your ultimatum any day.
🧐Meme: you can: 1) Pass this on to your friends or, 2) Delete it and act like it didn't touch your heart.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: No acting about it. I'm not sending this ripped off, poorly modified, egotistical, manipulative piece of dreck on to any friends. My suggestion to anyone who wants to read the real story, buy the Chicken Soup series. I'm not just deleting it either, because if no one clobbers it, no one else will ever get to read how it honestly makes some people feel, who are sick of seeing these re-sharing cons yank and lead others around via strangle-hold on the heart.
🤦🏽♀️BP No acting involved. When I first heard this, I will admit, it got me. But I was like, twelve, maybe. I've grown a fair bit since then, and I'm not impressed by this self-aggrandizing drip!
🧐Meme: As you can see, I took choice number 1.
🤦🏽♀️BP Well, DUH.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Well of course - you're the one who started this thing in the first place. So touched were you by your own rip-off of a short story plot, your self-insertion into it and Gary Stuing it all to heck. But I'm not following you.
🧐Meme: "Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly."
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Right, just like they are Wingless ^^^Lists/ChainLetterAngels.html">Angels and just about any other stinking kind of angels made up for the sake of keeping these memes going.
🤦🏽♀️BP Eh, come again? Since when have I had wings? Oh, that's right. I DON'T.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Enough with the angels already! Look, I never had wings, I never learned to fly, so I haven't forgotten how, and you may not realize this, but forwarding chain letters around the net does not equal becoming a flying angel friend.
🧐Meme: It's National Friendship Week.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: There's no such thing as ^^^CrappySappy/NationalFriendshipWeek.html">National Friendship Week!
🤦🏽♀️BP No such thing!
🧐Meme: Show your friends how much you care.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: If you mean by spreading this load of gunk, forget it!
🤦🏽♀️BP By going to a movie with them, buy just hanging out, sure! By sending this on? No chance.
🧐Meme: Eleanor Roosevelt wrote:
🤦🏽♀️BP Stop right there! Don't try to sell me some bogus quote!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Actually no, Eleanor Roosevelt never wrote any of that, neither can it be traced to any reputable source, so let's thrash it.
🧐Meme: Many people will walk in and out of your life, But only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Or, as the ^^^AntiChains/BuggerAll.html">Bugger All chain says, leave footprints on your computer. I'll pass either way. Friends don't usually walk all over your heart so can't leave actual footprints there. So spare me this incredibly cheesy drip. Of course friends are special, who needs chain letters telling them that?
🤦🏽♀️BP I know what you're going for...but wouldn't that hurt? Seriously, leaving a footprint on someone's heart? Ouch. Besides, when you walk all over someone, that typically isn't a good thing...
🧐Meme: To handle yourself, use your head; To handle others, use your heart.
🤦🏽♀️BP Yeah, right! Can I interest you in buying a lovely big red bridge?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Wrong order, dude. Actually if you don't use your head to handle others, you could be headed for heaps of trouble. That's how cons get pulled off, when people think with their hearts instead of their heads when dealing with shady people, such as thieves, frauds, hoaxers and other manipulative chain originators.
🧐Meme: Anger is only one letter short of danger.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Blah, blah, blah… *Yawn* Only in the English language. Look, I've seen this so many times before, it is simply not so totally awesome and original as you might want me to believe. Anger and danger may not even have any of the same letters in common in a different language.
🤦🏽♀️BP Oh? Not in German! Anger is Zorn, and danger is Gefahr. So eat that.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: For that matter, when it comes to English peculiarities, how about trying this one on for size? Add an 's' to 'laughter' and what do you get? 'Slaughter' Try making up some viral profundity out of that. BTW, I figured that one out a very long time ago, long before some chain letter-loving troll who kept trying to get on the old site had.
I'll help you. You take some story and slaughter it by inserting yourself and turning it into an unbelievably saccharin chain letter and as I wallop it, there should be laughter as other people who were secretly fed up with this kruft finally get to see some measure of their true feelings about this friendship forwarding con brought to light by someone else, so they know they're not utterly alone in feeling as if this stuff is insincere drivel that's exploiting and using their friends in a viral racket.
🧐Meme: If someone betrays you once, it is his fault; If he betrays you twice, it is your fault
🤦🏽♀️BP Not how the saying goes...
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: the saying goes "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." I rather like that sentiment, so why do you think I learned my lesson about chain letters years ago? I'm not going to let myself get fooled by you again into forwarding this chain to any friends. Hah! Your plan just Backfired!
🧐Meme: Great minds discuss ideas;
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I know, little minds discuss people… Blah blah blah.
🤦🏽♀️BP *rolls eyes*
🧐Meme: Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.
🤦🏽♀️BP Well, since this whole thing is about you, we can see wear YOU are on the scale!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I forgot the average minds bit, but, well, since you discussed yourself and Kyle this whole time, and wove the event of a fictitious grad into this, and I have the idea to mangle this meme, it should be pretty easy to know which of us has the greater mind here, even by your own standards. Hah! Pwned!
Oh, and there is a liberal who pretty much quoted that part of this chain letter in their anti-capitalist, belief in the human-caused climate change hoax, "Tea-partiers are killing you!" sky-is-falling, pants-on-fire article. Yes, indeed, a liberal who believes in the sayings out of a cheesy forward.
🧐Meme: He who loses money, loses much;
He, who loses a friend, loses much more;
He, who loses faith, loses all.
🤦🏽♀️BP Yeah, yeah, obvious!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Well, since you do all you can to make people lose faith in their friends every time they forward this junk instead of sending personal notes, what more is there to say?
🧐Meme: Beautiful young people are accidents of nature,
🤦🏽♀️BP What? Hey, look, no one is an accident of nature!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, please! No one is an accident of nature, beautiful by your standards or not! But now you're going to say something about beautiful old people or something...
🧐Meme: But beautiful old people are works of art.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Um, when it comes to that, everybody's a work of art. So what about the people who are young and ugly, or old and ugly? God any pearls of viral pseudo-wisdom about them as well? And by 'ugly' I'm not talking about physical appearance. Oh, and what is Kyle, is he a work of art, or an accident of nature?
🤦🏽♀️BP Say what? And what is it with you and beauty? People are so stinkin' obsessed with it- it makes me sick!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Amen to that!
🧐Meme: Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.
🤦🏽♀️BP No, really!? I never would have guessed that!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Of course nobody makes all mistakes, because if we all did that, we'd all be living clone lives, and would be everybody, making the exact same mistakes, the exact same right decisions, etc. So, there goes another of your statements. Oh, and since I've learned from not only my own, but other people's mistakes, I won't pass this chain on to anyone else.
🧐Meme: Friends, you and me....You brought another friend....And then there were... 3. We started our group.... Our circle of friends....And like that circle....There is no beginning or end...
🤦🏽♀️BP H'm! Yeah, shows what you know!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Actually I was never friends with you. If you mean by all this ever-growing circle of friends, spreading this chain letter, count me out.
🧐Meme: Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is mystery.
Today is a gift.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: And you somehow thought I hadn't already figured this out on my own?
🤦🏽♀️BP Blah, blah, blah. I never much liked that saying.
🧐Meme: It's National Friendship Week. Show your friends how much you care.
🤦🏽♀️BP You already said that, and I already said there's no such thing!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Broken record - you already said that, and no, I won't send this bogus friendship week chain on to anybody, because I care too much about people to do anything so gauche.
🧐Meme: Send this to everyone you consider a friend. If it comes back to you, then you'll know you have a circle of friends.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Bull!
🤦🏽♀️BP More like a circle of dupes!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: What would I want with copies and copies of this hoax and badly mangled story? Why would I want friends whose idea of demonstrating caring and friendship is sharing and spreading hoaxes? I don't, really, I don't!
OVER - AND - OUT!
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