“Hard to get,” a friend writes. “Why do these social media applications insist on one’s date of birth, indeed, one’s real date of birth? But they never specify which birth. A friend, for example, claims to have been born at least nine times over the course of the last three millenniums. Never the same date of birth, mind you. She’s been born in every season. Rather enjoyed winter births best, she relates. Wake up from the weaning and it’s spring. Slow gathering of the senses. In this current life, she is an artist, oil paintings.”
Mud poor, of course, this artist, this life. Asked to borrow another friend’s email, who created an account for her. Apparently, she wanted to display her work on one of the prominent social media platforms, which required an email address. And a real date of birth. This she struggled with (having recollection of so many births, including several in her current lifetime), the result of which, and after having posted pics of a couple of hundred paintings onto her new web place, came notification the platform deactivated her account.
Yet another friend has now reported to have seen our artist just yesterday, which in these parts happened to be Christmas Day, another of her birth days. But, apparently, she now relates, she may be able to reactivate the account, if she successfully submits to the platform the following stringently produced selfie, described in an email to her borrowed address, to wit:
Hey,
We’d like to help you, but we need to know your exact and real date of birth, including year, month, day, and time of day (using 24 hour clock time).
The easiest way to satisfy this requirement would be for you to reply to this email with several pics of yourself with a copy of your birth certificate hanging firmly from your neck with blue rosary beads and clearly visible and readable just below your chin.
- Include a front and back view of your face;
- Include side views, left and right, diagonally;
- Include your baby hand and foot prints;
- Smile so that your teeth are visible;
- Eyes open, face recently washed, no makeup.
Comply and we’ll send you a reply, but do not take this as a promise to reinstate your account. Further surveillance may be necessary. For example, we may require a pic of you sitting on the hood of your car with license plate clearly visible, and with time remaining on the parking meter.
We regret that these measures have become necessary, but we are doing our part to protect what remains of the free world. You may of course, avoid all of this potential inconvenience by simply upgrading your account to a business account that uses paid advertising across any one of our popular platforms.
Thanks,
The Purveyance Team
The Coming of the Toads 