Stave I: The Ghost of Facebook Past

Danny was definitely ghosting me, to begin with. There’s no doubt whatever about that. The “seen” receipt on his last message glowed like the Hollywood Sign at midnight – distant, bright, and completely unavailable. I mention this because you need to understand that when my Facebook account died on Christmas Eve, I was already having the kind of day that usually ends with drunk-ordering crystals from Etsy.

It started with a notification – as most modern tragedies do. “Your Facebook account has been disabled.” Fifteen years of digital life, gone faster than an oat milk latte on Abbot Kinney. The timing was about as subtle as a reality TV plot twist: December 24th, 6:45 PM, precisely when I was trying to distract myself from Danny’s silence by scrolling through photos I’d now have to pretend I never posted.

Here’s something they don’t tell you about getting dumped in 2025: it happens in layers. First comes the actual dumping – in my case, a text that read “I don’t care anymore” (charming, right?). Then there’s the social media exodus, where you watch their digital ghost fade from your life like an Instagram filter. And finally, just when you think you’ve hit bottom, the universe decides to throw in a plot twist by locking you out of your entire online existence. Type shit indeed.

I did what any rational person would do: I threw money at the problem. Fifteen dollars for MetaVerified status – because apparently, you need to pay to prove you’re a real person having a real crisis. It’s like having to tip the bouncer to get into your own emotional breakdown.

Meanwhile, my MacBook decided to join the rebellion. The password screen blinked at me with the same judgy energy as my therapist when I told her I was dating someone who used “type shit” as punctuation. The cursor pulsed like a tiny digital heartbeat, mocking my attempts to remember if I’d used Danny’s birthday or his Instagram handle in my moment of love-drunk password creation.

That’s when my phone lit up with an incoming call from an unknown number. The area code? 2005.

Because here’s the thing about digital ghosts – they don’t need permission to haunt you. They just need WiFi and an agenda. And apparently, this one had both.

Stave II: The Ghost of Password Present

If there’s a patron saint of digital disasters, she sounds like she smokes Virginia Slims in a server room in Heaven. “Password trouble?” she drawled, somehow making those two words sound like both a diagnosis and an intervention. “Honey, we’ve all been there. Usually right after someone named Danny type shit their way out of our lives.”

I nearly dropped my phone into my definitely-not-from-crying glass of natural wine. How did she…?

“Oh please,” she continued, as if reading my thoughts through the cellular network. “I’ve been working tech support longer than Erewhon’s been charging $18 for smoothies. I know a gay crisis when I hear one. Now, tell Momma what you did to your MacBook.”

The thing about confessing your sins to a tech support queen is that it’s a lot like doing drunk karaoke at Oil Can Harry’s – terrifying at first, but strangely therapeutic once you commit. I spilled everything – the documentary, Danny’s DMs, how he went from commenting “this film type shit got me in my feelings type shit” to leaving his emotional baggage in my dresser drawer like some kind of reverse Santa Claus.

“First of all,” she declared, “anyone who uses ‘type shit’ as punctuation doesn’t deserve to be in your password. That’s not even proper syntax, let alone proper dating etiquette. What we have here is a classic case of password poisoning.”

For the next hour, Momma Virginia guided me through what can only be described as a digital sage-burning ceremony. She was part tech support, part spiritual guide, like if Glinda the Good Witch worked at the Genius Bar.

“You know what your problem is?” she said as we waited for yet another error message. “You’ve been letting these men live in your technology rent-free. First Facebook throws you out like last season’s oat milk, and now your MacBook’s having a nervous breakdown because you let some cholo who can’t even properly conjugate his text messages infiltrate your password manager.”

She wasn’t wrong. I’d turned my digital life into a shrine to someone who probably still had an AOL email account and thought “Netflix and chill” was the height of romance. Type shit, indeed.

Stave III: The Ghost of Notifications Yet to Come

Sometimes the universe delivers its messages through unlikely prophets. In this case, it was coming through my iPhone speaker from a woman who sounded like she’d been gargling wisdom and whiskey since before the first iPhone dropped. Momma Virginia had moved from password recovery to full-on digital intervention.

“Pull up your notifications,” she commanded. “All of them.”

My notification center read like a memoir titled “How to Lose Your Dignity in 10 Apps”:

• “47 unread messages from Danny,” I started.
• “Let me guess – all variations of ‘we should talk type shit’ followed by him doing absolutely no talking type shit?”

I nearly choked on my third glass of natural wine. “How did you—”

“Honey, I’ve been doing tech support since before Mark Zuckerberg was old enough to steal a website idea. Keep reading.”

The list went on like a digital walk of shame:

• 15 Facebook recovery emails (each one more desperate than the last, like my texts to Danny)
• 3 Venmo requests for “emotional labor” from guys I’d gone on coffee dates with (LA dating has apparently developed a surge pricing model)
• 1 LinkedIn notification asking if I wanted to endorse Danny for “Strategic Ghosting”

“Your notification center looks like a crime scene where common sense went to die,” Momma Virginia declared. “And that boy is the perpetrator.”

That’s when it happened. A new notification popped up – Danny’s Christmas Eve Instagram Story. There he was, at his family party, wearing my hoodie, with the caption “Family time type shit.”<

“Did this man just—”

“Post a thirst trap in your clothes on Christmas? In this economy?” Momma Virginia’s eye roll was so powerful I could feel it through my AppleCare connection. “This is what we in tech support call a Code Red Fuckboy Alert. Time for the nuclear option.”

“The nuclear option?”

“Two-Factor Authentication for your heart, baby. We’re gonna lock down your digital life tighter than parking in Echo Park on street cleaning day.”

As we prepared for digital détente, Momma Virginia dropped the kind of truth bomb that usually only comes after three glasses of wine at Crossroads Kitchen: “Listen sugar, the best revenge isn’t living well – it’s having a password so strong even your therapist couldn’t crack it. Time to ctrl+alt+delete this man from your life.”

She was right. It was time to stop letting Danny live in my technology rent-free, treating my digital space like it was just another Echo Park apartment he could ghost on without giving notice.

“Ready?” she asked.

I took a deep breath, looked at Danny’s Story one last time (still wearing my hoodie, the audacity), and nodded even though she couldn’t see me.

“Type shit is about to get real,” I said.

And reader, it did.

 

Stave IV: The Morning After Delete

There’s something particularly cruel about having an emotional crisis during the holidays in Los Angeles. The palm trees are wrapped in Christmas lights, The Grove is playing fake snow every hour, and you’re sitting in your Echo Park apartment at 6 AM on Christmas morning, staring at your MacBook login screen like it’s holding your emotional stability hostage.

My phone buzzed – not with a “Merry Christmas type shit” text from Danny (thank god), but with a message from a number that looked like it was dialed from 1975. Momma Virginia, somehow still on duty: “Your password is wrong again, sugar. I can feel it from here.”

The fact that even my tech support guardian angel was dragging me felt like a particularly festive Christmas burn.

“I haven’t been using his birthday as my password,” I lied, while literally trying Danny’s birthday for the forty-seventh time, this time with an exclamation point at the end because maybe that was the missing piece to this digital puzzle.

“Honey,” she texted back, “I’ve been fixing broken computers longer than that boy’s been alive. Also, he just posted another Story in your hoodie. Type shit needs to stop.”

The truth was, Momma Virginia’s digital exorcism had worked on everything except my actual computer password. It turns out deleting someone from your life is significantly easier than remembering what clever password variation you created while drunk on love and natural wine at Tilda. Was it “Danny2023!” or “Danny2023TypeShit!” or perhaps “WhyDoIKeepDatingMenWhoTalkLikeInstagramCaptions2023!”?

“Listen,” Momma Virginia’s next text rolled in, “I don’t even have Instagram, and I’m offended by this boy’s audacity. Remember what I told you: sometimes the best password is the one that locks out the past.”

And just like that, staring at Momma Virginia’s tech support prophecies, it hit me. The password. The one I’d created in that brief moment of clarity between realizing Danny was ghosting me and deciding to drink an entire bottle of orange wine while watching “Notting Hill” alone at Tilda.

I typed it in: “NotDannyTypeShit2023!”

The MacBook sprang to life like it had just been waiting for me to get my act together.

“Holy shit,” I texted Momma Virginia. “I’m in.”

“Well hallelujah,” she replied. “Now can we please let Christmas happen, or are you going to spend all day updating your password manager with increasingly petty variations of ‘I’m over it’?”

The answer, of course, was both. Because nothing says “holiday healing” quite like creating a new password hint that reads: “What’s the opposite of your ex’s name followed by his favorite meaningless phrase?”

As my desktop finally loaded, one last text from Momma Virginia lit up my phone: “Merry Christmas, sugar. Remember – strong passwords are like good men: complex, reliable, and not afraid to use proper punctuation.”

Type shit, indeed.

Stave V: A Christmas Morning Reset

Los Angeles on Christmas morning has a peculiar kind of magic – the kind where 75-degree weather meets inflatable snowmen melting slightly in the sun, and somewhere in the Atwater Village Equestrian District, a documentary filmmaker is finally logged into his MacBook while his ex posts Stories in stolen hoodies.

My phone lit up one last time with Momma Virginia’s impossibly old phone number:

“One more thing, sugar. Pull up that documentary of yours.”

I opened the rough cut of my film – the one about my mom’s 50-year career in aviation, the one that had inadvertently brought Danny into my life when he slid into my DMs with “this film type shit got me in my feelings type shit.” The one that was, at its core, about legacy and resilience and showing up for life even when it’s messy.

“You see that timeline there?” Momma Virginia’s voice crackled through the speaker. “That’s fifty years of your mama getting up every day and choosing to soar. Meanwhile, this boy can’t even commit to proper sentence structure.”

She had a point. My mother had navigated five decades of airline industry turbulence, and here I was, letting someone who treated emotional availability like an optional in-flight service derail my holiday.

“Now,” she continued, “what’s the last thing your film needs?”

“Color correction,” I said automatically.

“No, baby. It needs an ending. A real one. About how sometimes the most important stories we tell are the ones about picking ourselves up after the crash landing.”

I stared at my film’s timeline, thinking about my mom’s journey, my own messy path, and this strange Christmas miracle delivered by a tech support angel who sounded like she smoked Virginia Slims in the server room of heaven.

“One more thing,” Momma Virginia added, “I took the liberty of unfollowing all his backup accounts. Yes, even the photography one he thinks you don’t know about. Consider it your Christmas gift from AppleCare.”

As the morning light filtered through my window, painting my apartment in that peculiar LA winter glow, I opened a new document and started typing:

“Password Hint: What’s stronger than heartbreak? A good backup system and better boundaries.”

Somewhere in the city, Danny was probably crafting his next “type shit” caption. But here I was, logged in, backed up, and finally writing my own story – no password required.

“Merry Christmas, Momma Virginia,” I texted.

“Merry Christmas, sugar,” she replied. “Remember – good passwords, like good endings, are worth the wait. Now go make something beautiful.”

And so I did.

Because sometimes the best stories aren’t about the ones who ghost us, but about the strangers who show up exactly when we need them – even if they’re just voices on a tech support line, guiding us home on Christmas morning.

Type shit? Nah. Just real shit.

THE END

Epilogue:

STAVE III: The Ghost of Danny Future (January 1, 2025)

New Year's Day brought the final visitation. “I’m moved past it,” Danny texted, with all the conviction of a man who thinks wearing socks during makes it straight. The symmetry was poetic – Facebook locked me out on Christmas Eve, my MacBook on Christmas Day, and Danny locked me out of his heart on New Year’s, all claiming it was “for my own good” in their own way.

When he hit me with “you’re seriously so fucked up,” I decided to serve him the truth harder than my MacBook served me that password rejection: “PS – you never made me cum. Not even once. I faked it every time.” Suddenly Mr. “I’m moved past it” had time to text “Fine text me back in a month.” Because nothing says “completely over you” like scheduling a follow-up.

God Bless Us, Every One (Except Danny)

As I sit here in my digital wasteland, locked out of Facebook, finally back into my MacBook (though Momma Virginia Slims remains trapped in Monterey, a tragic metaphor if ever there was one), I realize some things can be fixed with enough skill and patience. Other things are different. For instance, trying to access a heart that’s busy running System Update: No Homo requires a different support ticket.

At least my MacBook eventually let me back in. Though I hear Momma Virginia Slims is still stuck on Monterey, which feels like its own tragic metaphor. Tim Apple, if you’re reading this Tim Apple, if you’re reading this (and I know you are, I sent this to your secret iPod Touchme you only use for Grindr), your tech support queen deserves better hardware.

As for Danny? He’s probably still out there, trying to debug his sexuality with all the grace of a corrupted hard drive. Meanwhile, I’m here, finally logged back into my digital life, with a story to tell and a documentary to finish color-correcting. Mom’s lighting isn’t going to fix itself, after all.

P.S. Danny – I faked every password too.

P.P.S. Mark Zuckerberg CEO of Facebook – New phone, who dis?

P.P.P.S. Tim Cook CEO of Apple – Upgrade Momma Virginia Slims’ MacBook. It’s what Dickens would have wanted.

Join Our Support Group for Documentary Disasters & Password PTSD

Has a closeted cholo ever critiqued your color correction while wearing nothing but borrowed athleisure? Has your MacBook ever locked you out after a bad breakup? Are you currently responding to “type shit” texts with increasing desperation?

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Share Your Story:

Got your own tale of tech support salvation? Did Momma Virginia save your digital life too? Tell us about it:

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Remember: Good documentaries, like good passwords, protect what matters while telling the truth.

For emotional tech support, please contact your local AppleCare representative and ask for Momma Virginia. Results may vary. Mercury retrograde not included.