The Spider's Intentions

There’s this young woman. Facebook calls us friends. We’ve never met in person, so far as I know. Her profile says she lives in a city more than a thousand miles away.

Not sure how or why or exactly when we crossed paths, Meta-phorically speaking. Must have shared interests or mutual acquaintances or something else in common only a nosy algorithm would know.

Just the other day a post of hers popped up on my news feed. Short and tart, all of 71 words. To no one in particular she blurted, “Ok apparently this needs to be said: If you don’t like Trump just shut up about him already. Constantly harping about Trump is just giving him free publicity.”

She makes a good point, but its validity proved no deterrent to laughter. I mean, two sentences later, she mentioned the former president by name a third time. At that juncture, I was tempted to post a reply, something along the lines of “allow me to introduce you to my good friend Irony.”

I resisted the impulse, in small part because I understand …