The Post Going Viral Post

Last week I had something happen to me that has never happened before, despite my relentless jabs at #CaptainOuchieFoot.

I went viral.

It happened on August 16, while my wife and daughter and I were lounging on a beach in Santa Barbara. We'd been experiencing cabin fever and needed to just get in the car and get outta here, never an easy task in Southern California.

While we were camped out on the beautiful, white sands of Santa Barbara, I started getting texts from friends. It turned out my little mailboxsitting stunt, had caught fire. First on Dan Rather's Facebook page and then on Twitter.

It started out with a few dozen retweets. Then a few hundred. And then I lost count, because people were simply screengrabbing the picture and posting it themselves. People were calling me a Hero (Nope), a Patriot (Yup) and a veteran (I don't know how anyone got the idea I was a veteran, I corrected them immediately.)

Next thing I knew the hashtag #CaptainOuchieFoot was all over the place.

Had I been at my desktop, chances are I could've stoked this little internet fire even further. But I didn't need to. By Sunday night, as we were driving home and hitting traffic, friends were texting and suggesting that I'd be getting phone calls and invitations to appear on morning news shows. I almost expected news vans to be parked on my front lawn when we got home. Instead one of the neighbor's dogs had left us a big, sloppy, well-coiled turd.

That kind of sums up my life so perfectly.

In any case, the viral sensation was short lived. Like a Michael Bloomberg Presidential run. I knew it would be. And I'll be the first to admit, it was exciting. You work in advertising your whole life to create this kind of buzz. And then it happens. And then it disappears.

That's the nature of fame, particularly Internet fame. It's fleeting.

Life returns to normal. Bills need to get paid. Groceries need to get replenished. Slow bathroom drains need to get unplugged. And the hero worship fades away only to be replaced by the tiny marital digs that make up a working marriage.

"You have a dozen pair of expensive running shoes in the closet. You finally get a chance to go viral and you go out there in your rattiest ugliest sneakers?"