And now news from the ‘Holy Shit I think I just Filled My Pants’ category:
Two nights ago, I was working very late. VERRRRY late. What is more, I was getting calls from my clients on the East Coast, who were an hour ahead of me, and getting screamed at. Not fun. And I was shooting a million emails off to various people (spin spin spin). In between that, I sent an email to Jake, consisting of basically the lyrics to ‘Once In a Lifetime’ by the Talking Heads. You know, ‘You may ask yourself How did I get here?’.
He replied ‘You should go home because you’ve obviously snapped.’
I replied, putting ‘This is not my beautiful job’ in the subject line.
‘Yes, I’ve snapped’ and crackled’ and popped. And by the way, what was up with those guys? I mean, they obviously were some kind of gay cereal poster boys. Who wears epaulets and conductor’s hats anymore? Seriously?’ And sent it off.
He never responded. I thought nothing of it because, hey, it was really late and he probably went home.
Flash forward to the next day. I’m on the phone with one of my teammates and am searching through my sent items, looking for something that I had sent to the client the previous night, as I was going to read my exact email to her. I’m a multitasker. It’s a bad habit. While I’m looking, she’s continuing to talk about something else. I sorted my email according to who I sent it to and went down to the client’s name.
In that grouping of emails, I see an email with a strange subject line. A subject line reading:
Oh no. Oh no. OHNONONOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
Only I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything. I just slow motion clicked on the email. Up pops the snapping and the crackling and the popping. Up pops the comment about people who wear epaulets being gay.
My jaw hit the keyboard. My cheeks turned bright red. I think I had tunnel vision for a second, focusing on ‘gay cereal poster boys’ until the phrase doubled, then trebled, then started spinning, like in a public service announcement about the dangers of LSD.
And you may ask yourself My God, what have I done?
‘Weetabix??? Are you there?’
Dear Lord! I was still on the phone!
‘Yes, I’m sorry, could you repeat that?’
I closed the email and then flew up to the grouping of Jake’s emails. It wasn’t there. The last email I had sent him was the one with just lyrics in it. Nothing. I went back down to the client’s name.
It wasn’t there! WHERE DID IT GO!?
I frantically checked my deleted items. Nothing under either name. I sorted everything by subject line. Nothing starting with ‘This’. It was like God and Satan were having some kind of Old Testament chess game and Beelzebub just moved his rook to my square and said ‘Heh, watch this.’ Seriously, I would have rather a plague of locusts.
I called Jake. He never got the email.
The client called me later.
‘Hey Weetabix this is Mr. StressGiving Guy. What’s up?’
His voice sounded very normal. I played it cool.
‘Hey Stressy, um’. Nothing. (pause) What’s up with YOU?’
‘Nothing. Just wanted to check in with the answers I owed you’.’ And then he proceeded to talk about non cereal related, non gay, non epaulets wearing businessy stuff.
I still don’t know what happened to the email. The client has mentioned nothing. As far as I’m concerned, it’s don’t ask, don’t tell.
So, if you hear any snapping or crackling or popping coming from the direction of Wisconsin, it will the vein in my temple bursting.
