A week or so ago, I got an email from a cousin of mine. It had really been sent to my mother, but as I have the same name as my mother, my cousin mistakenly sent it to me. No big deal, I haven’t talked to her for years, so I wrote her back, explaining the mistake, and chatted a little. She chatted back, everything ended on a fine note. A quick little hello to a long-lost cousin. Great!
Now it’s this week. I get a “funny” email from my cousin. No problem, it was actually rather amusing. Skip to today. I get a list of “Sayings found on Ladies’ bumper stickers.” Suddenly, it dawns on me - she’s a Joke Server. One o’ those who thinks it’s “fun” to maintain a list of every single person she’s ever emailed, and pass on “jokes” and “amusing stories.” I’m waiting for the glurge.
My Aunt, a lovely intelligent woman normally, never emails me except to forward along something she’s received.
Jokes, glurge, and many versions of the dreaded “Pass this on to everyone you know and 5 million dollars will fall from the sky and land in your lap after you hit ‘send’”.
Twice I’ve composed carefully worded emails back to her, complete with links to Snopes. I’ve deleted them without sending. The guilt and animosity that such a step would bring… well, you can’t measure it and it wouldn’t be worth it.
I just delete her emails without reading them and whenever she brings it up in person, I smile, nod, and avoid saying anything.
Ok, I admit it. I like to send jokes to family. But what I’ve done is set everyone up in a single address list, called “Family”. So when I find a joke I like, I send it to “family”. Only if their email is bumped do I delete them.
I always figured they’d either delete them or ignore them. Now I feel terrible!!
Oh, and by the way, could you send me copies of the stuff your cousin sent you? I could use a laugh today!
