Love Letter Goes Astray

I received a love letter the other day, in which a woman whom I know slightly (who is living with an friend of mine) told me how much she missed me and couldn’t wait to see me on the weekend and how she was going to smother me in kisses and other demonstrations of undying love. I was her everything, she proclaimed, in italics just like that, and she would never be able to live in a world without me.

I was a bit surprised, to say the least - especially considering how I haven’t even seen this person, not even in passing, in months. I mean, I hardly know her at all, and as my eyes took in her bold print proclamations of utter devotion I couldn’t help but wonder what her boyfriend - who, after all, I knew, and with whom she recently bought a house - would have say about it. But I was, in a way, also touched - just as any red-blooded male on the planet in receipt of such a letter unexpectedly out of the blue like that would be - but as for the romantic weekend (as tempting as it sounds): thanks, but I’m ususally too busy ferrying the kids about and returning empty beer bottles to the beer store.

Every guy I know loves to receive this kind of affectation from a female. In Hollywood, they make movies about it. But to tell you the truth I really wasn’t all that comfortable with it. I was, more than anything else, startled out of my wits. I was confused. I started to sweat profusely.

I was wondering, as I tried to remember if the paper shredder was plugged in, how I was going to explain all this to Helene.
As it turned out I needn’t have worried. The letter was not sent the old fashioned way - in an envelope with a stamp spit-stuck to the front of it. It was sent the new, modern, high-tech way we send mail to each other these days - by e-mail. And it wasn’t supposed to go to me. It seems it actually was intended solely for the eyes (and libido, obviously) of this woman’s boyfriend but her finger slipped on the computer keyboard (she was excited, no doubt about it) and she clicked on my name instead of his and fired it off in a quick, regrettable instant.

And then the next thing you know her romantic gushings were oozing up out of my computer screen way over on the other side of town.

Well - all I can say is a letter with a stamp spit-stuck to the front of it never did that. And that’s the problem with e-mail.. It’s snap-your-fingers instant. When it’s sent, it’s sent - period. There’s no getting it back. In the old days you could always, if you misaddressed an envelope, chase after the postman and tackle him on a neighbour's front lawn a couple of doors down and run off with his letter bag.

But you can’t do that with e-mail. Hitting the “send” key and then realizing you’ve sent something to the wrong person - especially when it’s a mushy love letter full of pillow talk - must truly be a feeling of utter helplessness. It’s got to be right up there with losing a winning lottery ticket.

Immediately after I received my misaddressed electronic love letter I received another message from the same person. “I just sent you an e-mail by mistake,” it read. “Please delete it immediately.” As I read it I imagined her sitting nervously in front of her computer anxiously awaiting my compliant reply. Then I imagined her boyfriend, after she explained what she’d done and how silly she felt about it, saying, “Of all the people to send it to you had to send it to the Loose Cannon?” Then I remembered how I didn’t have any idea what I was going to write about this week.

Well - sometimes things happen for a reason.