I was a few sentences into a post earlier today when I noticed it combined two topics that could easily become the overriding theme to this blog: inappropriate smart phone use and inappropriate public restroom behavior.  I witnessed the double dipping this morning and being disturbed by the behavior, wrote a post.  But, not wanting smartphones and bathrooms to rule this blog I decided not to publish it at this time.  Fortunately, as is usually the case, some other behavior came along providing me with yet another venting opportunity: Hashtag Abuse.

The hashtag has become so common and widely accepted that people are now punctuating their speech with hashtags.  For instance, at the conclusion of a brief soliloquy about the miserable nature of one’s day the person may finish by saying, “hashtag first world problems.”  This alone makes me want to banish them to an iceberg in the arctic wearing nothing but a pair of socks, but that’s not really what I’m annoyed with at the moment.

I have a Facebook friend who has taken to posting only in hashtags.  And I don’t mean posting with just one hashtag and nothing else.  I also don’t mean that it’s an occasional thing.  It is every post and they contain around ten hashtags.  The latest one which showed up in my feed this morning had 11 hashtags.  A couples selfie, no actual words and 11 hashtags.  

I can’t confirm that 11 is her personal best because the thought of scanning her posts to check made me want to gouge my own eyes out with a spork.  

Some situational details which may explain some of the behavior.  She’s recently divorced and, according to one of the 11 hashtags in today’s post has been involved and madly in love with her new guy for #fivemonths.  By the way, she never capitalizes anything in her hashtags.  Also annoying, but I digress.

The details of the divorce and new relationship are sketchy at best.  I didn’t even know until someone pointed out to me a couple of months ago that the guy in the offending posts wasn’t her husband and she’d gone back to her maiden name.  I claim ignorance due to a lack of “hashtags as a sentence” tolerance.  

As I mentioned, today is evidently their five month anniversary, #FiveMonthiversary.  And this is a big deal because they have #somuchlove and #heismyeverything.  Five months also is apparently a #dropinthebucket and they both need to #makeitcount because there are #nodoovers.  Whatever the #FuckThatMeans.

I’d prefer they nauseate me and the rest of the social networking universe the old fashioned way, by professing their love in one barf inducing paragraph about how, “I never imagined life could be so good until we found each other five months ago and now, suddenly I am breathing again without ever having realized I wasn’t breathing before.  He is my everything and you can’t believe how much more meaning my life has now that you’re in it.”

Instead I feel like each hashtag is going to make me hurl.  That’s sound you heard this morning was me gagging on 11 hashtags.  And to top it off he replied with his own post, again with a dual selfie – as always from above in an effort to accentuate the already overly-accentuated, artificially enhanced cleavage – and an additional five hashtags of his own.  I’m not even friends with this guy but it showed up in my feed.  #KillMeNowOrKnockItOff

This morning’s post put me over the top and I started to comment on the post, in all hashtags.  I decided against it because she’s family and so many people have “Liked” her posts and commented about how beautiful they are together that there’s no way I come off looking like anything but a schmuck.  #YoureASchmuck.  So I figured I’d just put the angry hashtags here, knowing of course that they do not conform to most hashtag rules of etiquette.  Yes, there are hashtag rules of etiquette.

#StopPostingInAllHashtags #SeriouslyWriteACompleteSentenceForOnce #Nauseating #PleaseInTheNameOfAllThatIsHolyAndSacredStopPostingThisNauseatingShitAndUsingOnlyHashtags #DoesntAllThisDroolingOnEachOtherGetKindaGrossAndMakeYouDehydrated #ForTheLoveOfGodAndAllHumanityStopPostingInAllHashtags