I’m sharing one last tale from 2014. It started when a friend and I took a bus to downtown Seattle, and she showed me an app on her phone called OneBusAway with a map of the present location of our bus. I downloaded it immediately, but on my phone screen all I saw was the bus schedule. By the time I arrived home, I’d forgotten about the app, until the next time I rode the bus.

When I boarded the 550 to Seattle, I clicked on OneBusAway to see if I could find the magic map. It asked permission to know my location, which I gave. A few minutes later, having no success finding the bus map, I turned to Facebook for entertainment.

It didn’t fail me. About the time my bus pulled out of the Bellevue Transit Center, on my Facebook page was a local map with a dot on Medina, Washington and the notice, “Ann Oxrieder was at Bill Gates’ house. December 24 at 11:28 AM in Eastland, WA.”

Comments soon followed. “Say hi from me.” “Tell him my mom knew his mom, Mary.” “Nice!!!!” “Congratulations! Thanks to that incredible man, I have an education.” “So sad. Lizard Squad just hacked into his XBox system.”

I added my own statement to clarify: “I’m on the bus, actually, and Bill is nowhere in sight. This is crazy.” Apparently, this was too ambiguous for Facebook friends, 19 of whom posted “likes.”

I forgot about my non-visit to Bill Gates’ place until I met two friends for lunch a few weeks later. They arrived at the restaurant together. “Well,” they said in unison, “before we talk about anything else, we want to hear everything about Bill Gates’ house.”

I reminded them that I had commented that I was on a bus. Hadn’t they seen it? One responded, “We thought you were moving around Bill Gates’ estate in a small tour bus.” Wouldn’t the Gates family love to see that service made available to tourists?

I’m not the only one who’s faced challenges from this app (though I confess that someone later pointed out the easy-to-find icon that would lead me to the map.) A friend who rides from the University of Washington to the Eastside, jumped on the first bus he saw headed his way on the app map. It was the wrong bus and it took him to the Microsoft campus.

So why did Facebook report my presence at Mr. Gates’ house? Has he taken control of the bus app and the social media site and is he using them to create mischief in our lives?

Ann Oxrieder, a long-time Bellevue resident, blogs about life at http://stillalife@.net. She is currently writing a novel.