Don't be telling ME to "Wake Up!"

Okay. I really need to get this off my chest because I find things like this really rude.

I have constantly said that I live in a great neighborhood. I do. I like my neighbors. Several of them I like a whole heckuvalot. I don't care that they are Republicans. I'm assuming they don't care that I'm a Democrat because they still call me up to chat. Mostly, we don't talk about politics at all. I've always found that most people are more alike than they are different. We all care about the same stuff, mostly. I don't feel that Fox News and the various republican run websites are legitimate sources for factual information, so I personally feel their beliefs are misguided. I can wish all day long that some of them would look the information up on legitimate non-partisan websites, but that doesn't mean I won't like them if they don't. Unless, they shriek at me in my email box. At that point, they are treading on very thin ice, but even then I put up with it and try my damnedest to ignore them. I have filtered all forwards out of my inbox. I have actually blocked a good friend because her husband was sending me about 10-20 forwards a day. Now I have to go into my Trash folder once a week to see if she has written me an actual letter. When I'm there, I have to look at the insulting garbage mail one person constantly feels compelled to send me. The last one was choice.

I went to my trash folder to check and see if any letters from my buddy Joann were in there. What did I find? I found something to "Obama's 'FANS'" which was just another stupid, rude, insulting, ill informed forward, but what got my goat is that before the huge lists of other people's emails, (why do people feel compelled to forward and reforward and continue to forward thus giving me 3 feet of other people's private email addresses. I'd like to reiterate that this is a very rude practice. Not to mention stupid. If someone's email gets hacked, gee thank you very much for giving the hacker all these extra spam recipients!) anyway, before the forwards, in capital letters, italicized were the words "WAKE UP!!!" I could practically hear the keys being pounded in anger. Welp. That woke me up better than 4 cups of coffee.

It woke me up to the point that I decided it's getting harder and harder to keep you as a friend and one more thing like that and there is about to be yet another person you don't get along with on this road. Don't be shrieking at me to "wake up". My last vote didn't get us into the messes we're currently in and you are the one fixin' to do that all over again. I've been using the internet for legitimate research for 13 years. I've been online for 14 years. In 1993 it was well known that if you address someone in capital letters, you are shouting at them. I'll not be shouted at in my own email box. I've sent you nothing that would warrant such behavior and never would.

I never forward anything other than our online Satellite bill and that only goes to my husband. That's it. If anyone gets something from me, it's from me. It's not me giving their private email addresses to every person in my contact list (which is like the rudest thing ever, are you going to call all your buddies up and give them my unlisted phone number while you're at it?). It's not me making no greater effort to keep in touch than to hit the forward button. No, if you get something from me, it's just from me. I might cut and paste a joke that I think you in particular might find funny, but I don't just clog the internet sending 100 people a joke. I also include a note.

Therefore I must ask, what in the last 3 years has ever made you think I want right wing propaganda in my email box? I seem to remember asking you several times to take me off the list of people you forward that garbage to. I told you then that I'd love to get letters from you to tell me how you are doing, but that I did not want any more forwards. I seem to remember gently pointing out the decided lack of facts in these forwards... a dozen or so times. So why on god's green earth do you send me junk you should know by now is both unwelcome and nonfactual? You must not care about me as much as I cared about you since you continue to send me this crap. You must have no respect for me at all to send me stuff when I've politely asked you to stop. I don't think this is a very nice way to treat someone that has always been kind to you. If you cannot take the brief time it takes to remove my email address from the forwards you send out when you know I find them insulting and that I don't want my email address spread among your friends, their friends, their friends friends, etc., then why would I take the much greater time it takes to be a friend?