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WEDNESDAY, 2 AUGUST, 2000, PHILADELPHIA |
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One of my multitudinous and jobs at the college is to maintain people’s vacation messages. You know, those bounce-back messages that you receive when you email someone that consist of… Hello. Daphne will be out of the office until August 15th. She is having her tubes tied. If this message is important, please email her associate poopybutt@swat.edu. Thank you for your email. So anyway, I was doing one today for Denise. I copied the text from her email request and pasted it into the emacs .vacation.msg screen and was about to just save and quit when I thought maybe I should read it to make sure I copied the correct part of the initial email. Apparently, I didn’t actually hit command-c for copy — I just thought I did I guess — as the clipboard still contained an earlier email I had copied, and which was currently sitting in Denise’s bounce-back file. Hello. Erik came by and upgraded my FileMaker Pro to version 5.0 yesterday and it’s working *great*! Thanks for all your help. I’m now having trouble with my monitor. It keeps flickering and wobbling around. It’s getting really aggravating. Can you come and look at it tomorrow? I’ll be on campus in the afternoon. Thanks, Tom. And that made me laugh. No, but, like, really really hard. The thought that that would be Denise’s bounce-back message to anyone who emailed her. Hee hee hee. Reminded me of another story in which I did not catch the faux-pas in time. This is kinda funny. Years ago in San Francisco I was working for a lawyer out of his Victorian on Geary Street. I was the office-bitch, writing up proof-of-services, keeping his calendar in order, filing, managing his phones, etc. Proof-of-service is that silly little document you have to attach to everything legal that says, in loquacious legalese, that the recipient has received the letter. You kinda end up doing them without thinking. They go something like this: Kevin F. Poopypants, representing Darla Scrump in case file#82739C hereby and fortowith acknowledges, recognizes, and despises the heretowither fact that this document is hereby and ipso facto delivered to Melvin, Melvin, Melvin and Crotchrot, Attn’ys at law, at 666 Folsom Street, San Francisco, CA 94103. With undue and verily truthsome artifice, (Then the signature stamp goes here.) Okay, so I rattled out one of those one day, printed it, sig-stamped it, stuffed the envelope, addressed it to the courthouse, then went out to the public mailbox and dropped it in. Came back into the office. Pottered about with some other officey tasks, then eventually had to use the computer again to do something else and I saw on the screen the most recent proof-of-service I had written. I stared at it. Blinked. Held my breath. Rubbed my eyes. Looked again. Not quite comprehending what could have gone wrong. Being the Nancy Drew sleuthster that I am, I surmised that I had typed the entire thing with my left hand one key over from the home keys. The letter, bearing both the signature and letterhead of my employer, and that was irretrievably going to be mailed to the courthouse, read thus: Jevub F, Oiiotoabtsm reoresetbubg Darka Scryno ub case fuke#72638C gerebt abd firtiwutg acjbiwkedgesm recigbuzesm abd desouses tge geretiwutger fact tgat tgus dicynebt us geregt abd uosi facti dekuvered ti Nekvubm Nekvubm Nekvub abd Critcgritm Attb;ts at kawm at 555 Fiksin Streetm Sab Frabcuscim CA 84193, Wutg ybdye abd verukt trytgsine artufucem, Kevin F. Poopypants Nobody ever really reads those things anyway, right? 
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