Chain E-Mail

This morning was an exercise in frustration. We are trying to get the taxes taken care of; husband has a HUGE work-related event next Tuesday that is keeping him chained to the block; and they insisted on moving up the closing on the Oklahoma house to next Monday. We’d planned to attend, in person, but now we’ll have to do it through the mail.

At 10:00 a.m., I got a call to come pick up the tax papers and prepared to head twenty miles down the road to the CPA because I didn’t have court, today. I arranged for the house closing documents to arrive via e-mail so I could print them out and have them notarized at the CPA’s office – killing two birds with one stone. Feeling pretty efficient, at this point! Before I could slip out the door, the Court called with an emergency removal case and they needed a guardian ad litem at noon. I promised to be there. It is on the way, as it turns out, and will help pay for my gas money! Plus, it helps out the Court.

The promised Oklahoma house e-mail had not arrived by 11:00. I called to ask them to resend it. About that time I began getting e-mail after e-mail after e-mail from an elderly, retired lady who I used to work with and who is quite a pistol. Unfortunately, she regularly sends me jokes, pictures of old people and freaky weather phenomenon, and tirades about illegal immigrants, terrorists, Obama and Hillary. She also frequently sends horrible stories that she has not vetted for accuracy (none are true) and lots of cute stories about children saying things god would approve of. She sends lots of chain e-mail sorts of missives that say that if I am a real friend, I will send it back (I never do but she keeps sending me things telling me how swell I am so I guess she forgives me). Once she sent something that said I would suffer a horrible accident (or my children would suffer a horrible accident) if I did not respond. I asked her to not send anymore like that. Things slowed down for a couple of weeks. Since then. I’ve not gotten any that are THAT bad but I don’t know if that is just luck or she is actually putting some thought into what she is forwarding.

So I sat there, watching the clock, white knuckled, screaming at the computer to hurry up and go through the virus protection so I could get my legal documents and make it to court on time. Delete... delete... delete... delete... delete... delete... delete... DELETE!! Attachments and video and pictures on all of them. I honestly thought about calling to ask her to shut the damned thing off but she is 1,300 miles away and had probably already sent the things through hyperspace, clogging up my computer. Plus, I don’t have her number.

I finally gave up at 11:25 when the 8th stupid e-mail was coming through. I barely made it to court on time and would have been late if I had not parked in the parking lot by social services that is restricted to social workers (If questioned, I planned to tell them that I was going to court on a DSS case and hope for the best).

So I will make the trip to the CPA’s office in the morning. It cost us a day that we didn’t need to lose but I expect it will all come out okay. I thought about telling my elderly friend to stop sending so many e-mails but I just don't have the heart. Normally, it is simple enough to just delete them. Today was just one of those days where NOTHING was simple.