Using Tears from a Bottle

Notes from the Prairie: I Wonder Column #52

Today, I decide I need a selfie with tears. Why?

Several weeks ago, Facebook suspended my account for no good reason, I want to create a sad Substack article about my suspension and include a photo of myself crying. I’ll also ask a few friends to post it on Facebook on my behalf. I dream the post will go viral and force Facebook to reinstate me.

I wonder how to create a crying selfie. Unlike professional actors, I can’t produce tears on demand. Voila! I think of a solution: flooding my eyes with the artificial tears my husband uses when his eyes get dry. Those tears will drizzle down my cheeks.

I set a card table where the light is good, prop my cellphone up for a selfie and fetch the artificial tears bottle from Marlo’s bedside table. I sit in front of the phone, tilt my head back and squeeze the bottle above my right eye.

Ouch. Ouch. OUCH! Pain sears my right eye. My eyeball and eyelid scream with pain. I dash to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face.

When I can think again, I wonder what happened. I open my left eye and walk back toward my phone and the tears bottle. I pick it up and read with one eye, “Earwax Remover.” Earwax remover! Why didn’t I double-check the label?

When the pain subsides slightly, I check my face in the cellphone camera. My right eye is bloodshot and still dripping tears. Apparently empathizing, my left eye does the same.

I put on a sad face and take eight selfies.

When I finish, I ask AI about dangers of earwax remover on eyes. It tells me: Flush eyes with warm water for 15-20 minutes. If the pain continues, consult a health provider.

I’ve already splashed my face briefly with water, and after that my tears flushed my eyes like a fire hose, so I decide against dousing them more. My real tears already provided a nonstop flush. My pain is decreasing, so I probably won’t need to visit an emergency room.

My eyelid swollen, I take down the phone setup and card table. I walk to my desk and begin to write the article about my Facebook suspension.

The column fights me as I try to tell a sad victim tale. It stubbornly insists on an irritated tone and refuses to let me play a pathetic victim. In the end, I let the article have its way. After all, after my suspension I felt both pain and anger. Besides, with multiple wars and starving people around the globe, how much sympathy can I evoke with a mere Facebook suspension, even if I am wrestling a behemoth corporation?

I look at my eight photo choices and sigh. My red blood vessels and tears are almost invisible. I wonder about retaking photos with an angry face instead. I decide against it. I will let that sad element remain. I post a special Friday Substack and then email the photo and article to a few friends, asking them to post it on their Facebook pages.

By now I feel truly sad. I realize the article and photo probably don’t merit going viral. What chance do one person and a few friends stand against Meta, the billion-dollar corporation that owns Facebook?

I’m ashamed to tell Marlo about my eyedrops mistake. The next day, my eyelid back to normal thickness, I tell him and say I’ve learned a lesson. He agrees always reading labels is wise.

As a writer, I am committed to stay visible in at least one social medium. Over the weekend, I start to research what social medium I can best switch to. Unfortunately, Facebook is most popular among people my age. Sadness returns.

Then on Monday, during a bus trip returning from a senior outing, I receive an email from Facebook. Its headline reads, “Your review was successful.”

Woo-hoo! I can return to Facebook.

When my ecstasy subsides, I wonder, “Is there a lesson here, too?”

Facebook’s email is a generic form letter. I don’t know whether my 20 online pleas to Facebook, my Substack column and the posts by friends had any impact at all. The certified letter I emailed to Meta last week, with 12 pages of attached documentation, has not yet reached Meta’s California headquarters.

Perhaps there’s a sliver of a chance my multiple attempts to override an algorithm and reach a human being in a huge corporation succeeded. Maybe… Perhaps…

I like to think so. It gives me hope.

Today, I choose hope.

I wonder if I can find slivers of hope amid our country’s fraying and angry cultural fabric as well. I wonder how much of that anger is launched by tears and sadness. I want to choose hope in that broader context, too. I want to find the common humanity I share with my friends, acquaintances, and neighbors. I wonder if we can begin to move toward hope by recognizing our own pain and sadness, along with that of others across the aisle.

What do you think? I’d love to hear if you’d like to hope with me for healing our divide and if this idea or something else might offer that sliver of hope for you. No shouting, please!

Carol Van Klompenburg is a writer living in Pella, Iowa. She can be emailed at carolvk13@gmail.com. Her website is carolvanklompenburg.com.