FOR a long while I only ever FaceTimed my husband with a giraffe filter on.
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Sometimes it was a unicorn.
Two years ago, my then eight-year-old was in charge of all the family FaceTime calls when my husband was working away from home.
She'd activate the filters that took her fancy.
Alien. Chicken. Poo.
Obviously, some were less flattering than others.
But at the end of the day - some of those seemed longer than others too - even an alien filter can look out of this world on a working mum!
Also sporting a filter had the extra benefit of disguising just how pear-shaped the day had gone.
Pre-filters, my husband once remarked during a FaceTime call with my youngest that she wasn't in her PJs. Wasn't it already past nine o'clock!?
"Are you Wee Willie Winkie?!" I say.
"We've had dance lessons and dinner and readers. No one here is in their night-gown!"
Hence, we got filters all-round for a while there.
But there is a big difference in choosing the filter and having the filter show up, uninvited.
Last week online footage of a Texan lawyer denying he was a cat as he appeared with a feline filter on a live call captured the public's imagination and became a viral hit.
"I'm here live, I'm not a cat," the lawyer pleaded his case.
Later the judge posted the video and wrote: "If a child used your computer before you join a virtual hearing, check the Zoom video options to be sure filters are off. This kitten just made a formal announcement on a case in the 394th."
Silly business aside, everyone wanted that kitten filter.
Some believed it was using deepfake technology because the filter seemed sophisticated.
Interestingly, it was an ancient piece of software pre-installed on some Dell laptops.
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She'd activate the filters that took her fancy. Alien. Chicken. Poo. Obviously, some were less flattering than others. But at the end of the day - some of those seemed longer than others too - even an alien filter can look out of this world on a working mum!
Talking about the kitten-lawyer to my husband on a FaceTime call last week, I noticed a small, blurred triangle at the top right of my screen.
I wasn't wearing my reading glasses.
The triangle was perfectly placed, tilted like some type of hat or fascinator.
It reminded me of post-winter school holidays last year when the Roblox game platform symbol randomly showed up in the middle of my computer screen and then on top of everyone's head who presented during my morning news conference.
The journalists were oblivious to the fact they were sporting metal blocks on their heads.
They looked silly.
I never mentioned it.
Except to the one who looked the silliest. Not naming names, I quickly emailed a photo to them to share it!
"Is it a hat?" I call out last week to my youngest, who had cleared the room, post-haste, "That triangle-thingy."
"It's not a hat," my husband says, deadpan.
On closer inspection, I found it was a poo emoji.
"Come and fix this, please," I call out to my daughter.
I'm here live. I'm not wearing a sh** hat!
Hello! We have a shituation!!
There was no way my youngest was coming back to the lounge room to give a Gen-X-er a leg-up.
That's no fun.
"Get the poo off Mum's head!" my husband calls out on speaker phone.
"COME. AND. GET. THE. POO. OFF. MUM'S. HEAD. RIGHT. NOW!!" he says, once more with feeling.
Working late in Parliament House, I could see my husband pass a security guard in the corridors at that very moment.
"Evening," he says to him.
"Evening."
Truth be told, I'm 100 per cent sure the poo-head conversation wouldn't even rate among the top 10 weirdest things the security guard would hear on his regular night shift rounds in the hallowed halls of Parliament House.
