I recieved a terse email from my BIL tonight. I’m not sure exactly what it means. I’ve emailed him back asking for clarification but I think he’s gone to bed. I’m not going to lose any sleep over this but I’m curious to see what y’alls opinions are.
Background: I send an email tonight to my BIL and a few others which is a piece of an article about the hurricane. It’s about 3 paragraphs I reckon. There is one photo in the email but it’s not large. The article is just blah blah blah about the damage. There is no commentary from me in the text, just the article and a cite for the source.
This is what he sent in reply:
Now, I can construe the meaning in a couple ways, but none of them make sense to me.
“second time” - I only sent the one. I sent him one about two months ago about an antique sale but that’s it. I only recieved this one from him today. Second time a hurricane hit Texas maybe?
“No third strike”. Something to do with ‘three strikes you’re out’? That’s all I got.
“Final email”. His final email? My final email? Don’t send any more emails???
That’s what I think, too. It sounds as if he is saying “this is the second time you’ve done this, and I won’t give you a chance to do it a third time.” But what the heck does he think you’ve done? It sounds as if this guy is mighty touchy, and tiptoeing around such a person, trying not to set him off, can be a royal pain.
My interpretation as well, although there isn’t anything in your description that would explain why he felt that way.
When you say you sent the email to him “and a few others,” how many are the “others”? Does he maybe have something against you sending out mass messages with everyone’s email address showing? Just a WAG.
Has he previously presented himself as a tough guy?
Either way, I have a bunch of old political/religious glurgy e-mails if you’d like to deluge him from an e-mail address he won’t recognize.
(Note that I am not offering to send the messages to him, only forward them to you so you can do the honors – as if Snopes doesn’t have a bunch for you anyway:D)
Well it was several. Maybe it did look like spam … But that’s not something I regularly do, send stuff out. Like your Aunt Nellie or someone sending you the eleventieth copy of some crazy message? Not something I do.
Nope. The only unsolicited email I’ve ever sent him was a notice of an antique sale in North Miss. His wife collects antiques.
One other note: He sends this kind of thing every now and then, to a group of people. About once a month, maybe. The last one he sent was about a reenlistment ceremony in Iraq or somewhere.
Oakminster &** pinkfreud**: sounds angry to you too huh? Weird. I wonder if he’s had too much to drink and has me confused with someone else? Funny thing is, he has our email listed under Hubby’s name. So essentially he sent this message to his own brother. Looks like he’d recognize that name!
iampunha: He is a tough old bird. Ex-marine, just turned 60. He’d probably prefer those religious glurgey emails. Hah!
Maybe he doesn’t like to get email with information that is not particularly new or under-reported. After all, the media have been promulgating the aftermath of the hurricane night and day–it’s in the paper, on TV, radio, etc. You yourself characterize the information as “blah, blah, blah.”
Maybe husband and BIL have had a falling out unrelated to your email. In this case, he might have just seen the sender and subject line and hit reply, quickly typed the equivalent of “piss off!” and never bothered to read the e-mail at all.
Nosir. I haven’t mentioned this to Hubby either, as I don’t want to cause trouble. I sure am curious ! I s’pose time will tell. If it was accidental, or drunk emailing, he might be too embarrassed to reply.
Instead of wondering, why not pick up the phone and ask him? You don’t have to be confrontational, just tell him you got this odd e-mail and were wondering what it meant. I know some people don’t like to get attachments with e-mails for fear of a virus.
Actually, that makes me think that he sent it on purpose. Lots of brothers give each other shit on a continuous basis. I think you might have just stepped into the normal badinage between them.
Huh? He’s your husband. Why in the world wouldn’t you tell him what happened and get his opinion? Or maybe he’s sent a bunch of shit e-mails your BIL and that’s why your BIL flipped.
