Get your fucking kid out of my mailbox

The BBQ Pit
1

I love babies. Good lord I love babies. I think babies are darling and wonderful and I want to have a couple of my own. Speaking and playing and working with babies is a great and wonderful past time.

My dear friend G also loves his baby. His eight month old baby who is, admittedly, gorgeous and a delight to behold.

But the kid is fucking eight months old now. COULD WE PLEASE CURB THE SENDING OF PHOTO FILLED EMAILS? FIRST OF ALL, you live all of THREE GOD DAMN BLOCKS From me. I see the child at least once a week. I baby sit the child, my husband is the godfather. WE ARE IN THE BOY’S LIFE.

The child was born and I received many photos. They were darling and I said “this is great that he sent these. I will save a few”. Since then, at least once a week, my mailbox is packed with “Baby Photos 1 of 7”. Seven pictures? What’s so bad about that you say?

OH no.

If only.

One of Seven EMAILS. Each email containing three to five pictures.

Here is the child in a sweater.

Here is the child in a diaper.

Here is the child in a bath.

Here is the child eating it’s foot.

Can the child sit up? Make faces? Pose? Of course not. Every. Picture. Is. The. Same. The same big eyed, glazed over, gummy smile but with various props to indicate the passage of time and the sentient nature of the being.

So? What’s the big deal? Just erase them and quit your whining, you cold, heartless, moderately infertile harpy.

Oh my friends, if only. Except that if I don’t respond to the emails, I receive them again, with the message:

“You didn’t comment on the pictures! Did you not get them? Which is your favorite? Isn’t number four cute? Do you like his new shirt??? I will send again!”

I can only assume that when the child turns eighteen this may begin to dwindle. Until then…

I suffer in silence…but for my venting on this board.

2

It’s their first kid isn’t it?

I’m the youngest of six kids. Let me tell you. My oldest brother has about 5000 baby photos and slides of him while there are about 3 photos of me as a baby and one of those was taken by the hospital.

3

“oh that was your baby? I thought it was one of those hairless cats like on Austin Powers. Please re-send them so I have an entry for www.mocktheuglybaby.com. By the way, how do you tell which end to put the diaper on?”

OR:

"The new email program we just installed strips large attachments as they might contain viruses. I will have to stop by to see that rascal myself. "

Your choice.

:wink:

ps. decent draft by the Bears, nice to see there is some hope for the future at QB, and they kept Green Bay from getting him.

4

If your friend isn’t tech-savvy, claim E-mail issues: “Oh gosh, lately my mail program chokes badly every time I get attachments, would you mind not sending more pictures or else I can’t read my E-mail. I’ll just have to treasure seeing Baby X at our weekly get-togethers. Thanks!” If your friend is, my condolences, respond with (as I’m sure you’ve been doing) bland or fake-cheery “oh how adorable” replies, then send the original to the bit bucket, pictures unviewed.

5

Even if your friend is tech savvy, tell her that you don’t like getting unsolicited attachments (not an unreasonable request), and suggest that she post the pics on a web site. Point out the advantage of the whole world being able to see the most squishiest beautiful baby in the world.

6

Interesting that you assume it’s a woman tdn :smiley:

It’s the father who does this. He is CRAZY nuts about this kid. What’s interesting is that he’s very tech savvy. He absolutely MUST know how this clogs people’s mailboxes, but sends them anyway always promising ‘these are the last ones ever…I swear’, with several winking and smiling emoticons after that.

7

Ditto. I’m the youngest of four, and were it not for the fact that I was often left in the care of my step-grandmother (who’d married my grandfather after my siblings were already way past baby-hood, so I was, essentially, her first grandchild), I don’t think there’d be ANY baby pictures of me! :wink:

As for the OP, I have one word: BLOG. One of my best friends has started a blog about her new baby (age: 2 months), and I think it’s brilliant. It allows people to decide when and where they’re in the mood for News About Donovan/Pics of Donovan (I have it in my Favorites folder, and visit about once a week–when there’s a new entry, I’m so excited), so nobody is overwhelmed or underwhelmed, and everybody’s happy!

On the other hand, my sister is more like the guy in the OP (and her twins are two years old). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been forced to sit through half an hour of footage involving my niece looking at her father’s shoe, or received pics of my nephew crying (because, well . . . that’s what he does).

Then there’s one of my OTHER best friends, who is trying desperately NOT to behave like the guy in the OP, and so I don’t see or hear squat about her baby until I call or email and ask for pictures! That’s no good, either.

So yeah. I vote for the blog.

8

I say use outlook to black list his email address and reject any attachments.

Or if you want to really bog the servers (and him) down, reply with the attachments! Send him back his own pictures with only a “thanks” as the only reply. If he sends another batch, send BOTH replies back to him. Lets see how his computer holds up to a 3 meg email :smiley:

Or just tell him to stop.

9

I have a friend just like this only he sends photos of his dog! “Here Oliver is sitting in the porch or looky, here is a cute one of him sleeping, oh you’ll love this one of him wearing my baseball cap!”

I think the suggestion of a webpage is excellent! I think I will suggest it to my friend.

BTW Jar, when I read the title of your OP my brain was trying to wrap around the image of a baby stuck in a regular mailbox. I was thinking, WTF? Someone tried to mail a kid?

10

Actually, I assumed it was a man. Then I wondered why I made such an un-PC assumption, so I changed “him” to “her.” Hey, I still had a 50% chance of not making a fool of myself.

I should never gamble.

11

:smiley: either don’t gamble, or always go with your gut!

12

Photoshop can be your friend. Make a disturbing collage featuring the baby face grafted onto every vilified world figure from Pol-Pot and Idi Amine to OJ Simpson. Send it back, and hilarity will ensue.

Seriously, just tell them your boss (or IT dept., or whoever) has complained about the size of the message attachments, and ask if you can just get the best one or two photos. If it’s a private email, just tell them it fills your inbox and other mail has begun to bounce.

13

Oh, and no dice on asking him to stop. I did that once and he said “it’s good luck! I have to send them until you get pregnant! ENJOY!”

14

I set up a freebie personal page for photos of our boat as we did the interior refurbishment, as well as pics of the President’s day snow storm and whatever else I want to post. I’ll send a link to assorted friends and relatives telling them that if they’re interested, that’s where they can see the pics. Some write back and thank me, some don’t say anything. No biggie either way. My feeling aren’t hurt if you don’t want to see how cute the kitty looks sleeping in the pilot house.

Dunno what I’ve done right, but unless I specifically ask someone to send me photos of their kids/pets/vacations, I never see them. Not that I mind one or two, but if someone sent stuff to me like you’re getting, I might become a tad crabby. No, really, I do get grouchy on occasion.

15

I had the same reaction. I was wondering what kind of stange mail-order club jarbabyj had joined.

Can you set up your email to automatically respond with some bland and meaningless reply message (“Aww. How cute. Nice photos”) everytime you get an attachment from this guy? After a getting a few instantanious replies with the exact same message (“Aww. How cute. Nice photos”…“Aww. How cute. Nice photos”…“Aww. How cute. Nice photos”) maybe he’ll get the picture (no pun intended). Since you’ve asked him to stop and he wont, he has no right to be offended.

16

Ok, I too thought it was a thread about sombody sticking their kid in your real mailbox (i.e. “Junior, you stay in here and I’ll raise the flag. When jarbabyj opens the door to get her mail, you scare her.”)

Could you set up a filter that has any email with attachments from this guy gets automatically deleted?

17

Is it wrong that I badly wanted that to be a real site where I could make fun of pictures of ugly babies? Damn.

18

That person should set up a website.

It’s much more convenient.

19

I was hoping that was a real site, too. I have some real doozies that I’d love to post. Anonymously, of course because they’re of my friends kids. Not my kids–because they were just so cute when they were babies. In fact, they’re still so cute now! If anyone would like some picture, I can email them right out to you, I have hundreds.
:wink:

20

Lordy, I’ve been there. Something along these lines usually does the trick:
"Dear [Friend,]

You are a dear friend to me, but I’m going to have to take a firm tone with you in this note.

I’ve already asked you once, politely, to stop filling my mailbox with large attached pictures of Junior. I MEANT IT. I really don’t need to see all of these pictures, as I see him X times a week in person. And I think we both know that your reason for refusing to stop sending them (as I politely asked you to), namely that it’s “good luck” and that you “have” to send them until I get pregnant, is not true. Your refusal to stop sending these pictures after my polite request is neither good luck nor cute. It’s annoying and rude.

I am going to ask you ONE MORE TIME ONLY, again politely, to stop sending me baby picture attachments. I am glad to see the baby in person, but these pictures are jamming up my e-mail account – as I have mentioned before.

If you continue to ignore my polite request to stop, I WILL block your address so that I do not receive ANY of your messages. I do not want to do this, as I treasure your friendship and enjoy receiving personal e-mails from you WITHOUT several megs’ worth of pictures attached. But if I cannot get the pictures to stop arriving from your end, I have no choice but to do something about it on my end.

I hope I have been clear. One way or another, I will not be receiving multiple photo attachments from you anymore. It is your choice as to how that will be accomplished.

Love,
jarbabyj"