* * * * *

   All I wanted was a surreal email conversation with a confused recipient

I've had a Google email account [1] now for sixteen years. I don't use it for
anything, preferring to run my own email server, thank you very much. And
even after all this time, I still get email for other Sean Conners [2] (that
is, a number of other people called “Sean Conner,” not one person called
“Sean Conners”).

I recently received an email for Sean Conner that consisted of nothing but
pictures of a pickup truck. And another one trying to remind me that my mom
is turning 90 this year. Or my Aunt Marge. It was kind of hard to make out
how I was supposed to be related to Marge, despite the fact that I have no
Aunt Marge, nor was my mom called Marge.

Most of these I reply back in a straightforward manner informing the sender
that they have mistaken my email address for that of their Sean Conner. But
one message I got though …

> From: Jen <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Subject: RE: Sean
> Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2020 23:56:00 -0500
>
> Sean, are you near Tuxedopark?
>

It had been three weeks since that came in. And the word “Tuxedopark” just
screamed a custume shop, or maybe formal wear. The fact that it was sent on
All Hallow's Eve just cemented the connection in my head. Anyway, for this
one, I just didn't feel like a straight forward reply was enough, and I
decided that a surrealistic reply was called for.

> From: Sean Conner <[email protected]>
> To: Jen <[email protected]>
> Subject: RE: Sean
> Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2020 04:53:00 -0500
>
> Wow! That was weird! I was near Tuxedopark to rent my costume when this
> portal just popped into existence and swallowed me up. I can't go into
> details about what happened because I would be here all night, but I
> finally got out. Who won the election? Who's the President? Do you know?
>

I was expecting one of two things here—one, that I would start engaging in a
very surreal conversation about my adventures across the 8^TH dimention to a
very confused Jen, or I would hear nothing back. Instead I got:

> From: Jen <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Subject: RE: Sean
> Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2020 06:39:00 -0500
>
> Sean, I live near you!
>  My name is Jen, I am 31, and still very pretty
>  My pics are in my profile on this site: http:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX­
> XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
>
> Sign up there, it is free!
>  and find me, my nickname is Jenn_C!
>

A crummy commercial? Son of a XXXXX! Come on Google! I thought you were
supposed to be good at catching spam!

[1] mailto:[email protected]
[2] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2017/11/07.1

Email author at [email protected]