Please Forward This Post

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I get a couple of hundred emails every day. Some are personal notes from people I know, some are from readers, some are about business, some are "action alerts" from various groups in which I'm interested, and some are forwarded jokes and supposedly funny pictures.

I don't read all of my emails because I neither have the time nor the interest. I can tell from the subject line and address what most of them are about and I just hit "delete" on all of the stuff I don't care about. That's probably what you do, too. What I don't understand, though, is when people get upset about unsolicited email they get and go out of their way to write to someone and insist they be taken off the list. I find it so much easier and less insulting just to delete them. (I'm not talking about Viagra spam and the like, which doesn't work even if you complain. That's what spam filters are for.)

I recognize that not all computers and email programs are the same. If you're on an old system that takes more than a split second to download mail and requires you to open each email to find out if you want to read it or not, I can see how excess mail would be bothersome. Perhaps wrongly, I assume that almost everyone has a fast system now and that all they are really complaining about is having to flick their finger to delete something they don't want. I'm probably as off base about this, but it just seems like there are better things to get huffy about.

By the way, I do personally read and respond to all of the emails I get from Bizarro readers, except when I don't. Occasionally I get very behind on email – with stuff I've flagged to be read and responded to, not the "instant delete" stuff – and I don't answer emails I mean to. If you've ever written to me asking something that requires a response and you didn't get it, it was an accident, I wasn't just being a poo-donkey. Sorry.

That being said, please don't write just to see if I'll respond. That would make me huffy. If you really want to know something, though, feel free.

Here is are lists of my read/delete preferences:

Read: Fan mail, personal friends, business requests, purchase/shipping confirmations, hate mail, evites
Delete: Action alerts, political alerts, newsletters, forwarded jokes, advertisements, Facebook alerts, spam my filter missed
Eye-rolling revulsion: Series of patriotic pictures reminding me to support the troops, series of lovely pictures reminding me to appreciate the simple things in life, series of nature pictures reminding me that God is with me always, links to inspirational videos and songs

Since I have time, so I'm going to post once more today. A rare two-post day. See next post.

Until tomorrow – in the feast of life, be the fiber, not the fat.