Valentine’s Day Warning

Like any married couple or management team with offices across the hall from each other, Mary and I communicate mainly by email. However, we met physically at the coffee machine the other day.

“Didja get the links I sent you?” I ask conversationally.

“You didn’t send me any links,” she says.

“I most certainly did.  Coupla sites that I know you’ll be interested in. Do all sorts of good stuff that the charities you work with may want to take advantage of.”

“I didn’t get any links from you today. When did you send them? Are you sure you sent them?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” This is getting ugly now. “You probably deleted them accidentally.”

“You can look in my deleted mail if you want.”

I look.  They’re not there.  I accuse her of misfiling them. She challenges me to search her mail. I know how to make Outlook do that so I do.  Meanwhile I look in the Junk E-Mail folder that Outlook maintains.  Lots of stuff from me – aha – but nothing more recent than the last two weeks.

“I never look in there,” she says.  Quietly, I make sure Outlook will never Junk me again on her machine.  The Search Folder I set up on her machine has now been fully populated.  Still no sign of the missing emails.  I recheck my machine; they’re in the Sent Folder where they belong.  Hmmm….

“Why don’t you just resend them if you have them,” she says.

“That’s not the point,” I say.  As soon as the phone rings and I get on a conference call, my mind wanders and I realize where my mail is:  Postini has it!  Mail consisting mainly of links – even if it’s from me – looks suspicious to this generally very efficient and intelligent spam filter that our email provider runs. She logs into Postini and I make sure it’ll never reject me again on her behalf.

Now how many romances are gonna die this Valentine’s Day because e-cupid’s arrows are ensnared in a spam trap? Any lusty or suggestive remarks are almost certainly gonna spring the snare. Don’t let it happen to you.