My Own Idiocracy

I have a terrible habit of clicking the 'reply' button instead of the 'forward' when I'm working with e-mail.

The first such instance was in regards to a gentleman from Germany who had been e-mailing with Rob regarding family history and surnames. German Guy was kind enough to send us a sound file of himself speaking our family surnames as they would have been pronounced. For those not involved in family tree research, this is helpful because many times those recording names for immigration wrote the names as they heard them pronounced. For example: in the case of Rob's family, we suspect the surname Rolfes became Rolves.

So, in my efforts to share the sound file with my parents I went to forward the email to them and wrote something to the effect of 'Rob got this through an email exchange with some guy in Germany...'.

Only I replied instead of forwarded.

German Guy was insulted that I thought so little of him and refused contact with Rob after that. I honestly meant no disrespect; I was just trying to avoid having to explain the whole origin of contact part to my Mom. I e-mailed an apology along with an explanation of my mistake, but he never replied.

I've done it other times as well, usually harmlessly.

But today....yipes.

Rob and I were conversing by email and he asked why the fourth grade teacher had sent out her newsletter today - was there no school tomorrow? I replied that I thought there was a half day. As I was working my way through the email list though, I soon learned from the school newsletter that there is indeed no school tomorrow. In a foiled again! response that I wouldn't have the morning with just E3 here to get things done, I emailed my realization to him. Or, I attempted to forward the school newsletter with my added comments...

DAMN! It is a no school day – I thought I at least had the morning for BLEEP’s sake. That’s my new favorite phrase, after reading the book Getting Rid of Matthew…for BLEEP’s sake.

Yeah. I replied to the principal's secretary.

It should be noted that I don't usually speak that way. I'm not saying I haven't...but when I do it's around people I know WELL and usually in a situation where we're all goofin'. I'll just say that the secretary was a little taken aback, and the person who handles the school's computers called to check and see if maybe I had a computer virus.

So, in honor of Love Thursday this Valentine's Day...I do have to say that I love that I know the school office personnel well enough that we could all laugh about my mistake.

But I'll admit, I was blushing furiously.

And I have to work the concession stand tonight with the person who received the email.

Let's all ignore the elephant in the room mmm'kay?