# Poor little lost email **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 4, 2004, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356 "2004-08-04T21:53:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sofis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Sofis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofis)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2004, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/1 "2004-08-04T21:53:26Z")
I wake up, turn my computer on, check my email, and… I’ve got one from livejournal indicating that a friend of mine has commented on an entry. That’s odd. I haven’t updated my LJ for quite some time. Maybe she’s giving me some sort of oblique hint that I should update my LJ more often? Anyway, I wander over to Livejournal to read the comment (not sure _why_, as the entire text of the comment is found in the mail, but nevertheless…). The comment was posted the day after I made my entry, the 2nd of July. Huh. Strange. Why didn’t livejournal mail me until now? So I look at the date of the email. Also 2nd of July. So this mail has apparently been bouncing around the internet for more than a month before it reached me. I can just picture it in my mind: The snow is falling, piling in large drifts on the ground, and the wind is blowing with nearly storm-like intensity. A small email is staggering through the snow towards a router. It is dressed in rags and its feet are bare. Behind it stretches a line of deep footprints in the snow, as far as the eye can see. It reaches the door to the router and knocks weakly. Time passes. The snow falls. Nothing happens. It knocks again, as loudly as it can (not very). This time a sound can be heard from within the router, and finally a small hatch is opened in the door. Light leaks out through the hatch, but it is to high in the door for the little email to see through it. “What do you want?” an unpleasant voice asks. Unsteadily, the email asks: “Is this my home?” “No,” the voice answers, and the hatch closes again. All is silent again. The email considers lying down by the door, and dying. It wouldn’t be the first mail to do so. Not by a long shot. But… it has a goal to reach. It has an address. It knows that its home is out there, _somewhere_. The little mail starts walking again, towards the next router. Just makes you cry, doesn’t it? But now the mail is safe in my inbox, where it is warm and it can frolic and play with the other emails. Until I delete it, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![ErinPuff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dbc845/32.png) [@ErinPuff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ErinPuff)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/2 "2004-08-05T00:49:22Z")
Back at the beginning of July, LJ started eating comment notifications. Yesterday, it regurgitated them back at us, slowly and out of order. I got really tired of wading through my inbox for them. ---
**Author:** ![Sofis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Sofis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofis)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/3 "2004-08-05T01:05:39Z")
Yeah, I figured it was probably something like that. But I liked my version better :). ---
**Author:** ![tygerbryght](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9a28c/32.png) [@tygerbryght](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tygerbryght)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/4 "2004-08-05T10:42:44Z")
> [@Sofis](#): > > … > > So this mail has apparently been bouncing around the internet for more than a month before it reached me. I can just picture it in my mind: > The snow is falling, piling in large drifts on the ground, and the wind is blowing with nearly storm-like intensity. > A small email is staggering through the snow towards a router. It is dressed in rags and its feet are bare. Behind it stretches a line of deep footprints in the snow, as far as the eye can see. > It reaches the door to the router and knocks weakly. Time passes. The snow falls. Nothing happens. > It knocks again, as loudly as it can (not very). This time a sound can be heard from within the router, and finally a small hatch is opened in the door. Light leaks out through the hatch, but it is to high in the door for the little email to see through it. > “What do you want?” an unpleasant voice asks. > Unsteadily, the email asks: > “Is this my home?” > “No,” the voice answers, and the hatch closes again. All is silent again. > The email considers lying down by the door, and dying. It wouldn’t be the first mail to do so. Not by a long shot. But… it has a goal to reach. It has an address. It knows that its home is out there, _somewhere_. > The little mail starts walking again, towards the next router. > … :eek: You mean that poor little email got detoured through Antarctica?? :eek: Poor little thing! :rolleyes: Have you thought about taking up creative writing?? 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![lemon\_martini2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3be4f8/32.png) [@lemon\_martini2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lemon_martini2)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/5 "2004-08-05T10:50:13Z")
It probably couldn’t reach its home due to the huge number of ravenous bounceback emails that I’ve been having.My computer decided to send a message to everyone in my address book and messenger.Virtually all came back.So I have 89 new emails telling me either a message i never sent cannot be delivered or asking me why I have sent them a page of gobbledegook ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/6 "2004-08-05T13:18:31Z")
I took a leave of absence from my job last October for about four weeks. I returned normally, etc. About a month ago, in the middle of July, my co-worker comes over and asks me if I am taking another leave of absence. I say no, and she asks me why I e-mailed her my password, etc. I go look on her computer, and indeed, an e-mail i sent back in September of last year has finally showed up on her computer, detailing my password and some instructions on my absence. I see that my e-mail arrived right around the time yours got lost. I wonder if that’s related. ---
**Author:** ![congodwarf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@congodwarf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/congodwarf)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/7 "2004-08-05T17:44:14Z")
A couple weeks ago, I got an e-mail from the Weather Channel telling me that on Nov 15, 2003, there was a good chance for severe weather in my area. ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Means\_Go](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cc9497/32.png) [@Green\_Means\_Go](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Means_Go)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/8 "2004-08-05T22:00:12Z")
> [@](#): > > A couple weeks ago, I got an e-mail from the Weather Channel telling me that on Nov 15, 2003, there was a good chance for severe weather in my area. Ah yes. This is a new trend in weather reporting. Several different weather services realized it was much easier to accurately predict and report weather that HAD ALREADY OCCURRED, as opposed to trying to read climate, wind, and moisture data to predict weather patterns for tomorrow. Since moving to the new model, predictions are now nearly 100 percent accurate and they’ve been able to seriously cut back on expenses. ---
**Author:** ![MysteryFellow63427](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e4f/32.png) [@MysteryFellow63427](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysteryFellow63427)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/9 "2004-08-05T23:06:30Z")
FWIW most email clients will display the date and time as whatever the sender has on their computer. I could quite easily send you an email from 1950 if I wanted to. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/10 "2004-08-05T23:14:26Z")
> [@Sofis](#): > > … I can just picture it in my mind: > The snow is falling, piling in large drifts on the ground, and the wind is blowing with nearly storm-like intensity. > A small email is staggering through the snow towards a router. It is dressed in rags and its feet are bare. Behind it stretches a line of deep footprints in the snow, as far as the eye can see… Poor wee thing! That sounds lke quite a Dark and Stormy Night. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![DeadlyAccurate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@DeadlyAccurate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeadlyAccurate)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2004, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/11 "2004-08-05T23:46:47Z")
> [@lemon\_martini2](#): > > It probably couldn’t reach its home due to the huge number of ravenous bounceback emails that I’ve been having.My computer decided to send a message to everyone in my address book and messenger.Virtually all came back.So I have 89 new emails telling me either a message i never sent cannot be delivered or asking me why I have sent them a page of gobbledegook ☹ Sounds like one of those mass mailing viruses. Might want to run a virus scan to be sure. ---
**Author:** ![LeeshaJoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e8cbc/32.png) [@LeeshaJoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LeeshaJoy)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2004, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/12 "2004-08-06T02:48:01Z")
If Hans Christian Andersen had Internet access… 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2004, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/13 "2004-08-06T11:07:39Z")
“Great OP :)”, he says admiringly, wishing he could write like that some day. Something troubles him. He’s not sure what. He takes a long walk along the beach, and in the soft glow of the sunlight it strikes him. He retraces his footsteps, hoping to find **Sofis** where he had last seen her. He spots her, waddling in the shallow of the receding tide. He gingerly walks up to her and asks, “but… but… you live Along the Wintry Street, how can you keep the little thing where it is warm and it can frolic and play with the other emails?” You can see the glow in her eyes, as the sun sets in the distance. Wisely, she replies,… ---
**Author:** ![Sofis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Sofis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofis)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2004, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poor-little-lost-email/258356/14 "2004-08-06T12:06:18Z")
The street is cold, but my computer is warm. 'tis in the nature of computers ;). > [@](#): > > “Great OP :)”, he says admiringly, wishing he could write like that some day. Thank you :).