Facebook before the Internet

            The bell rang. The old man answered his front door to find two young men dressed in suits. “Excuse me sir, but if we could have just a moment of your time…”

            “I’m not buyin’!” The door slammed shut.

            Again the bell rang. Again the old man opened the door. “Did you not understand what I meant when I said I wasn’t buyin’?”

            “But that’s just the thing, sir, we’re not here to sell you anything. In fact, what we’re here to offer you is absolutely, one-hundred percent, free. Now, if you’ll give just a moment of your time, I guarantee that we will present you with something so amazing, so revolutionizing, so extraordinary, that it will be impossible for you to say ‘no’.”

            “Just a moment?”

            “Just a moment, sir, and then we’ll be on our way.”

            “Come in to the living room and have a seat.”

            The two men in suits followed the old man into the living room where they had a seat on the sofa. The old man sat across from them in an old rocking chair.

            “Sir,” the man on the left side of the sofa said, “my name is Mr. Zucker, and this here is my associate, Mr. Burg, and the extraordinary thing we are here to offer you is something we like to call Facebook. Now, sir, do you enjoy reading the newspaper?”

            “Well, I suppose I do.”

            “Then you’re going to absolutely love Facebook. Please, let me explain how it works.”

            The man on the left side of the sofa went on with his presentation while the old man sat patiently, nodding his head here and there, as if to say: Yes, I’m still following what you’re saying. When the presentation was over, nobody said anything for a minute. Finally, the old man broke the room’s silence. “So,” he said, “let’s see if I understand this correctly. You want me to give you all of my family photographs, all of my most private thoughts, and even my most cherished memories and you’re going to take all of these very personal things and share them with the world on a daily basis?”

            “Precisely,” the man on the right side of the sofa replied.

            “And you’re not going to charge me a dime?”

            “Our service is absolutely free and always will be.”

            “But then how do you make money?”

            The man on the right side of the sofa looked over to his associate on the left side of the sofa and smiled before returning his eyes towards the old man. “Let us worry about that, sir.”

            “Well,” the old man said as he stood up out of the rocking chair, “it all sounds good to me. Now, let me just go get some old photos to start out with.”

            “Wonderful!” said the man on the left side of the sofa.

            “Outstanding!” said the man on the right.

            The old man left the room. He returned a couple of minutes later with a double-barreled shotgun with which he put a bullet into each man sitting on his sofa. He then dragged their bodies behind his house and buried them in his backyard, right next to the bodies of the men from Twitter, Instagram, and the Mormon Church.