Fox 40 Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET

"I didn't think it would be that big of a deal."

These are words so many of us have used, just before someone slapped us across the chops.

So it has proved for Denise Helms, a 22-year-old woman from Turlock, Calif., who used Facebook to express her own miffedness with the re-election of the president.

As Fox 40 in Sacramento records it, she wrote: "Another 4 years of this n*****. Maybe he will get assassinated this term."

Oddly, this post seems to have incurred something of a reaction itself. Not everyone was at one with her sentiment.

Indeed, her employer, Cold Stone Creamery, looked at it chillingly and fired her.

"This employee is no longer w/the company & her disgraceful and completely unacceptable comments do not reflect our views," Cold Stone Creamery tweeted.

Helms, when interviewed by Fox 40, seemed largely less than repentant about her Facebook post. She said: "He's done absolutely nothing for this country."

She happily explained the nuances behind her thoughts: "The assassination part is kind of harsh. I'm not saying, like, I would go do that or anything like that, by any means, but if it was to happen, I don't think I'd care one bit."

This was after she'd again taken to Facebook (and before she'd deactivated her account) to declare:

So apparently my post last night about Obama got onto Twitter and Fox 40 came and interviewed me cause apparently a lot of people in Sacramento think I'm crazy and racist. WOW is all I got to say!! I'm not racist and I'm not crazy. just simply stating my opinion.!!!

You see, it's all fine. She's not crazy or racist. She was simply stating her opinion.

The Secret Service appears to have become interested in her opinion. To which Helms told Fox 40: "OK. But what did I do wrong?"

Helms insists that she had set her Facebook page to "private," so it's curious how her views might have received such public airing.

Especially as she's now receiving threats herself and has been in contact with the local police on a "just in case" basis.

So here endeth Chapter 4012 of The Perils of Social Media, in which yet another person discovers that what seems to be private may not be -- with difficult, um, kind of harsh consequences.