Forwarding email
Saturday, Sep 2, 2006
If a person sends you several email forwards a day, what does this mean?
Despite my wholehearted embrace of the doctrine of the total depravity of man, I really think people mean well. It means you’re on the forefront of their minds. It means they want to stay connected. It means people think you really like pictures of purring kittens clogging your inbox. I like to imagine the best.
I usually give people the benefit of the doubt. That is, until they cross the line. Sending a 13 MB file is crossing the line. I waited 20 minutes to download THIS?! Likewise, sending a virus that causes a total hard drive crash is also unacceptable. I don’t open emails from you folks anymore, so stop sending them.
It’s like this. If you don’t “forward this message to 10 friends to let them know they’re loved,” we’ll never know we weren’t in your Top 10. It’s OK. We can’t see that you never forwarded the message, and you’re not morally obligated to pass it along just because someone forwarded it to you. You can stop the madness. Just hit “delete.”
However, if you get one of these, go ahead and forward it. I could use a laugh every now and then. Ignore what I just said.
Attached is a picture of some of the devastation caused by Ernesto yesterday. [This is the storm that caused school closings and media hype all across Florida last week. ~Amy] As I gazed in awe on this picture, it occurred to me that some of you might want to share your “Ernesto stories” with the rest of us. It might be cathartic for all of us to come together and share our stories in the wake of this latest manifestation of nature’s wrath.
Be thankful. This could have happened to any of us.
Here is the attached picture….

23 Comments
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I hear you Amy! I mostly hate forwarded mail, especially the chain letter ones that threaten, “Are you to scared to pass this on. None of your friends will know, but God does. Are you ashamed of God?” and on…and on….
But, that “Ernesto” one is a hoot!
Comment by Amy (September 3, 2006 @ 11:02 am )
Maybe I’m first to comment?
LOL on the Earnesto fwd. I hear you on all the silly stuff we can get. I rarely fwd something myself. It has to be terribly funny or truthfully informative!
Great news on your daughter doing better! Praying for continued health.
Comment by Lyn (September 3, 2006 @ 11:03 am )
Hahaha. You have a great sense of humor.
How is your daughter feeling?
Comment by Amanda Wheeler (September 3, 2006 @ 12:36 pm )
Particularly in light of your and your daughter’s last few days, a tossed over lawn chair sure seems dreadful. I hope those people are finding the strength to pull themselves together. (Sheesh.)
Comment by anne (September 3, 2006 @ 1:23 pm )
lolololol *holding sides from laughing so hard*
Comment by Kim (September 3, 2006 @ 2:04 pm )
Come on Amy, aren’t you familiar with those great old hymns….
We’ll forward, til Jesus comes
We’ll forward, til Jesus comes
OR
They will know we are Christians by our forwards, by our forwards. Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our forwards….
it drives me nuts and I’m thankful that the depth of my (or anyone elses) relationship with Jesus is not measured by whether we forward and email or not.
anywayyyyy…..
I hope your daughter is doing better and that you all have been able to get some rest - I know there probably wasn’t much of that while she was in the hospital.
Comment by Deanna (September 3, 2006 @ 2:38 pm )
I have to say - this cracked me up! My husband and I were in Alabama last week, and were supposed to come home to south central Florida on Wednesday. I convinced him that we needed to leave Tuesday night and drive through the night in order to beat the storm. I still don’t think he has forgiven me for putting him through all night driving to avoid a trickle!! =) I’ll have to show this to him!!
Comment by Tiffany (September 3, 2006 @ 3:15 pm )
HA! That WAS a worthwhile forward. Very funny!
And how is your sweet Rebekah today?
~Stacy
Comment by reforming mama (September 3, 2006 @ 4:01 pm )
Oh, and your Dave Barry link had me howling with laughter. The bowling ball and straw part, especially.
Thanks!
~Stacy
Comment by reforming mama (September 3, 2006 @ 4:07 pm )
LOL
If only we could somehow set up our email to sort for relevance. Or at least block out the HUGE stuff.
I suppose anything’s possible, with enough technical expertise.
hehe
Comment by Rebecca (September 3, 2006 @ 6:43 pm )
I agree with the forwards. Most of the time I just hit delete even if it says that I need to let others know that God loves them, blah, blah, blah!!!! That is true but there is more than one way to do that. I do pass a few on but they have to be worth it. Ever see the New Orleans one? That one is funny just like the one above!!! Glad you got something to laugh about.
Comment by Lorene (September 3, 2006 @ 7:35 pm )
Forwards drive me crazy and my computer is slow and they clog my email for what seems like forever. It is quite annoying.
Comment by Anonymous (September 3, 2006 @ 7:42 pm )
i REALLY liked the idea for a genius…a true genius, to develop–sorting email based on relevance. now THAT is a revolutionary concept:)
actually, when i got thinking about it, all these email/blogging “problems” we have were non-existent 20 yrs. ago. 40 yrs. ago, we would have laughed at anyone who would have suggested that these things would even be possible!
lol at the ernesto damage. i think there was a bit more in the northeast but it was more flood related than wind…thankfully! very funny blog:) martha
Comment by martha (September 3, 2006 @ 10:01 pm )
So glad that your sweet girl is home.
I never could forward any of them. The ones promising good/bad luck seem to be putting my faith in a chain letter. The ‘ashamed of God’ ones seem to be bragging. Is that strange? Oh well…
Comment by Stephanie (September 4, 2006 @ 12:12 am )
Hee hee! That’s funny! I can’t stand those emails. Another thing to do is check http://www.snopes.com and send the person back the link showing it is a hoax. Good to hear that your daughter is home and getting better.
Comment by Keziah (September 4, 2006 @ 8:11 am )
I usually don’t even bother to open up forwards anymore, straight to the trash can they go. My husbands step-mom is one of those forwarders, she used to send 5 -10 in one day. They would be anything from “if you don’t forward this to 7 people you don’t love Jesus” , to jokes too vulgar to mention! It was so annoying and disgusting I was going to send an email to her asking her to stop. My hubby didn’t want me to do that so we just blocked her email address. Now if she would ever send an actual email we won’t even get it!
Comment by Rebekah (September 4, 2006 @ 9:12 am )
I have two or three friends that must forward every email they comes to their inbox. Like they were the first ones to discover the email about the woman who did nothing all day to show her husband how much she really does do! My aunt must have broken the exclamation point on her keyboard when she forwarded me that jupiter, or some planet, was going to be THE SIZE OF THE MOON!!!!!!!!
But, just whe I’m about to let her have it (through email, of course) I get one like this that’s actually pretty funny.
Comment by Amanda (September 4, 2006 @ 11:45 am )
My husband asks,
“What’d they ever name their dog?”
~Stacy
Comment by reforming mama (September 4, 2006 @ 12:42 pm )
The dog still isn’t weaned, so we still haven’t brought him home. However, we’re leaning toward Atlas (Greg’s rocket, yes, we know it’s a greek god) or Knox. I know I have a moral obligation to let you know when we decide. Ya’ll sure did put in the effort; it’s the least I can do. The first week of October, I believe he’ll be eight weeks and can come home.
No, you want to forward it to me?
She’s great today. Back to normal, but she’s a little tired. We hope to hear test results later in the week.
Comment by Amy Scott (September 4, 2006 @ 1:59 pm )
Glad to hear that Rebekah is better. Had her in my prayers after you alerted me the other day of her illness in your reply email. I really like the email you shared in this post. Too funny. As a tropical storm and hurricane savvy Texan, I am all too happy that Ernesto’s wake left only humor. I’ve had two feet of water in my house before… and the images of Katrina are what forced me to evacuate Houston while staying with some relatives last year. Yes, I sat in nearly 14 hours of freeway trauma with all those crazy Texans. Not sure if I would do it again, however. That was a nightmare.
Comment by sprittibee (September 4, 2006 @ 10:59 pm )
Ha!! My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed that one.
And we’re with you on the forwarded email problem. I run a ministry at my church, and I get a lot from people there whom I know only slightly. Everyone has my email address in order to contact me with important questions… I mean, anything they feel like passing on. It can be frustrating!
Comment by Emily (September 5, 2006 @ 12:41 am )
ROFLOL!!! I must admit that Ernesto did leave us flooded down here in SW FL, but my husband had entertained the idea of boarding up the windows - which I truly hate. I’m so glad he didn’t! Praising God for Rebekah’s recovery.
Comment by Patricia (September 5, 2006 @ 6:43 pm )
Oh, wow–thanks for my first laugh of the day. Oh, the humanity!!!
Regarding forwards–9/10 times I delete them. I don’t care who they are from. I want to hear from YOU. If you want to send me a joke…learn how to copy and paste! Hey, it’s easy. I keep telling people this, but no one listens.
And the math involved in forwarding something to 10 people…wow. 10 people send to 10 friends each, those 10 friends send to 10 friends. Well…it looks like: 10×10=100×10=100×10=1000×10=10,000 and so on. In a matter of seconds…there are 10,000,000,000,000,000 to the infinite power copies of some sappy picture or annoying poem clogging up cyberspace! Yeah, I say it again…oh, the humanity!
Comment by Mom2fur (September 7, 2006 @ 9:43 am )