Pox On You!

Tucking Middle Child in on Saturday night, I noticed that he was still wearing his dirty socks.

I pried them off his feet and noticed he had some blemishes. I lifted his pajama pant leg to see a few more. Lifted his top to check out his belly. Blisters. Yup. He has the chicken pox.

He went to bed happy, knowing that he'll be missing school for a bit. What I didn't dwell on is that it's going to get worse before it gets better.

Sure enough, he woke up with marks all over his face, clusters in crevices like his underarms. I may have been better off just pouring the bottle of calamine lotion on his back like I was marinating a flank steak. Today, he has pox on his eyelids, inside his nose and ears. He must have one in his mouth because he screamed when he drank his orange juice this morning.

This didn't deter Daughter from begging Middle Child to cough on her.

What To Do?

I keep getting emails for another woman. I assume our email addresses are very close which makes me wonder how much of my stuff are getting to her.

What is the protocol when you receive someone else's email? I end up opening it, which maybe I wouldn't do if I was worried about viruses and stuff. However, even if I don't know the sender, it could be a business thing. The subjects are never anything untoward but are almost always chain mail or a bunch of jokes. And on more than two dozen times, I get this woman's very personal emails.

I know that she has a son who is a complete hellion in his preschool. Another son has auditory problems. She's a realtor with a lot of investments across the country. She also has a very ill aunt.

I know waaay too much about this woman.

One freaky time was when my cousin's husband invited her to be his Facebook friend but sent it to my address. I asked him to tell her about this email situation with her but he said, "I'm a Facebook friend whore. I'm not even sure I know her." So I send him a photo of her. Yes, I even get photos of her.

Again, I don't know if it's socially acceptable to write back to the people who mistakenly send me email but I do. Usually one email explaining that they sent a message (or three) to the wrong recipient and that ends that.

But there's one person who keeps sending me crap. The first time, I sent her my standard letter. The next time, I sent the standard but added that perhaps she hadn't received the first one. The third time, I was a little more curt. The emails kept coming. I just deleted without opening. I figured that maybe if she didn't receive a response for a while, she'd phone or something.

Nope. I'm still getting "You've been tagged" or "Send this to fifteen amazing women" stuff. Worse are the ones that are so content-heavy that they take forever to load into the inbox.

Just last Friday, I sent a cease-and-desist in the most demanding tone I could emit from my keyboard. I guess I'm not a talented writer. I received eight messages in seven days.

So, being the bitch that I am, I'm thinking of sending this one person stupid emails back. Perhaps I should start with this video my auntie sent me.