I'm the Foursquare Mayor of this Goddamn Safeway.

I've got a piece up at McSweeney's today that chronicles my manic highs and lows on Foursquare. I wrote it, surprisingly enough, after I discovered I'd just lost the title of mayor at my neighborhood Safeway. Once the wracked sobs and teeth gnashing subsided, it occurred to me that I might be overly invested in an application that awards points based solely on my ability to leave my house.****

Foursquare fun facts:

I once held the mayorships of two In-N-Burgers at one time. It was mid-August, I believe, though I'm not sure; around here we just refer to that period of time as "Camelot".

In the interest of quasi-privacy, I changed the number of the Safeway I temporarily owned and the name of the dude who apparently lives there now. The indignant power struggle, however, is all too real.

****I am the long-standing Foursquare mayor of my house. We've got a special going right now- if you steal the mayorship away from me, I'll smash your smartphone with a tack hammer in the garage.

I'm Foursquare friends with The Palazzo Resort in Las Vegas. The Palazzo Resort is currently checked in as "off the grid- checked in but hiding their whereabouts". I can only deduce by this that the 3,000-room Palazzo hotel is hanging out at The Palms casino.

I believe that Foursquare might be the most useless application currently available online, which explains why I love it so. "Erin," one might then ask, "What's the second most useless application?" Answer: The rest of the Internet ties for second place.