I don’t know if this was a good thing or a bad thing, but 2013 opened in rather dramatic fashion when a camera crew rolled up to our door shortly after the first of the year. Apparently one of the reality networks had been monitoring us, and my wife had been selected for the premier episode of the new reality show, Email Hoarders…
Roll intro. Pictures of heavily distorted computers under dark, brooding clouds. Thunder rolls. Lightning crackles. Dramatic music builds in the background. The deep yet quietly sympathetic tones of the voice-over announcer begins:
“Welcome. This……. is Email Hoarders. Please join us as we take you on a journey, a real-life look behind the curtain at the chaos of the stress-filled lives of the people that society has forgotten. We’ll wander along the cluttered pathways trodden by these lost souls who’ve been abandoned in today’s paperless world. We’ll watch as their fingers tremble helplessly above the “delete” button, living in constant fear of pressing it and removing some vital joke or kitten picture from their hard drive forever. This is the hopeless and cluttered world……. of Email Hoarders.
“Viewer discretion is advised.”
Camera 1, tight shot of hot blonde looking at camera: “Hello. I’m Dr. Zello-Cyber. I specialize in OECD – Obsessive Email Collection Disorder. I have a Doctorate from Google University, with a Bing Minor. Today I’m meeting with Subject R. from a small city in Oregon. R. came to our attention after she had to upgrade her computer to a much larger one, rather than actually delete anything off it. It’s one of the worst cases of OECD I’ve ever seen.
“I’ve donned gloves and a mask, rubber boots, an apron, leather chaps and a full wet suit for protection. I have a welding torch, a spear gun, two candles and a 50-pound box of cyber bread crumbs so I won’t get lost. All of this gear is necessary before entering a badly cluttered OECD computer.”
(“Warning: Bing-trained professional in a closed computer. Do not attempt this at home.”)
Camera 2, pans to computer. Close shot, tight on email screen. Shows 1,347,893 emails. Also shows 74,239 new unread emails.
Camera 1, pans to Dr. Z-C and Subject R. “Hello R. I’m Dr. Zello-Cyber. I’m afraid you have OECD, but I’m here to help.”
Subject R: “I’m fine. I don’t have any OE-whatever. I’m fine I tell you- just fine. Leave me alone!”
Dr. Z-C: “Now R., you had to abandon your last computer, and your new, much larger one is filling up quickly. You have over 1.3 million emails, and over 74,000 that you haven’t even read yet. Do you understand that you don’t need all those emails? Did you know that there are other things on your computer – like useful programs that actually do things?”
Subject R: “Yeah, someone told me that once. I looked around, and I found a pretty cool thing called Spider Solitaire that I play sometimes. But mostly all that does is distract me from the emails. The emails are important. They must me read. They must be collected. I need them! I need every single one of them! Society sends them to me because they’re important! If I delete them, they’re gone! Don’t you understand – GONE! Don’t you touch them!!”
Dr. Z-C: “Now settle, R., settle. We won’t touch anything without your permission. We’ll start slowly, I promise.”
Camera 1 pans to a convoy of large tanker trucks in the driveway, followed by another strange looking stainless steel truck with what appears to be a massive reel of hose on the back. All the vehicles say 1-800-GOT-eMAIL on the sides. Men in HAZ-MAT suits hop off and begin unwinding the hose.
Camera 2 pans in tight on another man. “Hello. My name is Matt and I own and operate MESSIECRAP – Massive Email Suction Services In Extreme Computer Reality-Associated Programs. With my MESSIECRAP suction truck and disposal team from 1-800-GOT-eMAIL, we’ll separate and haul off all of R.’s unneeded emails. Some will be disposed of, but most will go to charities and homeless shelters so the less fortunate among us who don’t get as many emails will know that society hasn’t forgotten them.
“But first, Dr. Zello-Cyber and I have to convince R. to part with some of them.”
Camera 1 pans back to Dr. Z-C, Matt and R.
Dr. Z-C: “Now R. This email says your account at the Sagebrush Bank has been frozen. But you don’t have an account there. Can we allow Matt to suction this one off the computer?”
R: NO! I might open an account there someday, then how will I know if it’s frozen when it isn’t?”
Dr. Z-C: “Oooo-K. Uh, how about this one from Nicaragua. You don’t really know anyone there, and you know you didn’t win the lottery there, right? And you’re not actually going to wire them your bank account information? So let’s have Matt give this to someone at the homeless shelter who doesn’t have a bank account, and can have fun with a new Central American pen pal, okay?
R. NO! I want a Central American pen pal. Really I do!
Matt: You need to part with something. How about this animated dancing puppy? I see you actually have 1137 copies of the same email in different places.
R. Oh. I thought some of those were from a different litter. I guess you can vacuum off a couple of them. As long as you give them to the Humane Society. I don’t want to see them just deleted.
Dr. Z-C: Excellent! Now we’re making progress. Matt, go ahead and vacuum out the animated dancing puppy pictures and – wait, those are kinda cute aren’t they. Uh, forward a copy to my email address would you?
Matt: Yeah, no problem. I’m sending one to myself as well, and the camera crew wanted one, and so did the voice-over guy, and I think I’ll send a couple of copies to my Mom and my Aunt Amy and….