Instagram Put Me in Jail and Made Me Take My Own Mug Shot

I kid you not. This really happened

Selfie photo by author, image collaged in Canva.com where she usually makes cute stuff!

And here’s the kicker —

No wait, there’s a kicker up there already.

Here’s a second kicker —

I only went on Instagram to copy my link to put in a post.

After copying the link, a message popped into my face. There was a problem with my account, but if they could confirm my existence, they would restore my account.

I had to answer a series of questions in hopes of getting back into my account.

I thought, okay, I can do this. I’ve done it a gazillion times with Facebook. They usually ask me to verify my name, email, and phone number, and let me back on. Occasionally, I’ve had to make a new password. And since Instagram and Facebook are now conjoined at the hip, this should be the same process, right?

So I gallantly filled out their form, chuckling to myself about the post I’d just written. What was that post? A — mostly — love letter of appreciation to Social Media.

In it, I waxed particularly enthusiastic about Instagram. I did not say even one disparaging thing about it.

Wait, I take that back.

I explained how I cried tears and sprouted grey hairs to think I’d have to master Canva.com on my phone in order to play on Insta the way I wanted to play.

Hint — At my age, with my eyes, my cell phone is a phone and a camera and GPS. Period. I don’t compute on it. I don’t write on it. I don’t email on it. And I certainly don’t go on social media on it.

But I was in a class. Teacher-pleasing took over my terror. I got Insta set up and posted a few photos.

But I want more from life and more from Instagram than that!

I wanted to showcase my inner artiste.

And make those meme-y things with pithy quotes and cute graphics on them. I can simul-post with Facebook. They’re fast and easy and garner 100 times the engagement as my Medium posts do there. So WTF not?

Because just like I can’t work in -100 degree cold, I can’t work in -100 degree magnification.

Fortunately, I found an app that helps you post to Insta on your PC.

The clouds parted and the sun beamed on me. Glory Hallelujah! I dried my tears and got busy making and posting those cool meme-y squares, alternating light and dark backgrounds so they made an appealing checkerboard pattern on my homepage.

If I ever get back on, I'll start calling it a quilted look. that may help my longevity.

I think that’s why I got the boot.

Those folks over at Insta HQ are way more likely to be chess fans than checkers. Checkers is so, so juvenile.

Or maybe they looked at my checkerboard and decided I was a rigid, square, non-smiling, uncreative, neo-Nazi. With a checkered past.

Anyway, If I want to stay in Instagrams’s ‘good’ graces, I have to prove to them I’m me.

WTF?

I’m not even sure I know how to prove to myself I’m me.

Nowadays I don’t recognize myself in the mirror. Especially with my new shock of gray hair. Shock is right.

And where did that tummy come from? That’s not the one I ordered on Amazon. Someone switched my belly when I wasn’t looking. No fair.

At least Insta gave me instructions on how to prove I’m me.

It wasn’t just giving them my username and email, like with Facebook.

I had to write my real name and my user name on a piece of paper along with my Insta jail number — 082413 if you’re curious.

Those numbers add up to 18 by the way and 18 adds up to 9 in the world of numerology. I hustled my bustle over to Bustle.com to find out what 9 means. Here’s the good or bad news:

“In numerology, the number nine represents completion, as it’s the last of the single-digit numbers (which are known as cardinal numbers in numerology) and the highest in value. That said, it symbolically represents a culmination of wisdom and experience, and buzzes with the energy of both endings and new beginnings.”

Looks like things could go either way.

Either I have a successful completion of my ability to convince them I’m me, or they have a successful completion of my account on Insta.

So at least one of us wins.

I carefully printed all the data on a sheet of paper and posed for the camera making sure they could see my hand. Yes, that was in the instructions. You had to be able to see the paper and my hand. And it had to be a selfie.

In other words, I had to take my own mug shot.

And not only did I not get paid for my labors, not even a lousy thank you, but if I don’t pass muster — that’s muster, not muss turd — I will be permanently disabled.

Yes, that’s right. Permanently Disabled.

Here are their exact words, sorta, “If we can confirm your existence your account will be restored. If not you will be permanently disabled.”

What’s with the permanently disabled?

Sounds like they’ve got thugs ready to break my spine in half. I’m calling the differently-abled anti-defamation legal aid society. Maybe I can sue their proverbial asses off for that clearly un-PC threat. What would you do?

Bad enough they made me look like a hardened criminal. And take my own mug shot without payment. Now they’re threatening to disable me permanently.

And I bet they won’t let me back on Instagram, either.

That sucks.

So, if my story moved you in any way, please contact Instagram in protest.

Please vouch for me. Let them know you know me — as a fantastic and hilarious writer who deserves to have her Insta back. Even though she can’t post her stories on there the way she can with Facebook and Twitter. Or drop a link.

Selfie photo by author, image collaged in Canva.com where she tries to make cute stuff!

She can still make pretty meme-y things on Canva. Which, provided her hands still work after her traumatic spinal cord injury, she may still be able to do.

Allow her at least that.

Thank you, friends. I’ll keep you posted.

(But not on Instagram.)