1/2-Mails

Isn't it weird when someone sends out an email but only gives half of a story? I call these 1/2-mails and find them extremely irritating.

An old friend recently sent me an email stating he's selling his truck. This is not a close friend. In fact, I haven't actually seen this guy in person in probably 4 years. And he bounces around in life--one minute he's an airline baggage handler and the next he's a financial advisor. The only thing I sort of know about this truck is that he slept in it one night while tracking his ex-girlfriend (which is called stalking and scares me). So he sent me and the remaining 279 others under his "contacts" list this message announcing he's hoping to sell his stalking truck. Then he gave a picture of the truck and his asking price. And then he wrote, "Can't wait to drive my free ugly van!"

Free ugly van?!

Wait a minute, there are many, many details missing from this email and I'm not talking about the truck he's selling. This is such a tease! Why/how is he getting a free ugly van? Is he in a band? But they wouldn't give him a free van. Did he win it in one of those vehicle contests you see at the register at Perkin's and IHOP? He'd still have to pay the taxes though. Is he now a driver for FedEx? I didn't realize you took those vehicles home with you at night. I cannot figure out why he gets a free--albeit ugly--van. And I've been down this road with him before. I'll reply to the email asking all the obvious questions and he will either not reply or send out another mass email about the damn truck he's still selling. I'll have to wait until the next email he sends out which will be along the lines of, "Hey, I have 4 tickets to Little River Band, anyone want them for $100?" This is our little dance.

He's not the only one who does this, who sends out these 1/2-mails.

Another friend of mine sent an email out to friends with the opening line, "Well, my husband is now out of surgery and doing very well." The problem was NOBODY knew he even was having surgery! And that is a pretty terrifying 1/2-mail to get if you ask me. It gives the impression that the surgery was an unexpected. An emergency! Well it wasn't. The whole thing was planned and, therefore, we all should have been told that in a prior message or the one telling us he was in the clear. For some reason I didn't even get the 1/2-mail which is a whole other rant.

I will admit that my stories can get pretty lengthy (this one case in point). I'll be explaining a flight from Shreveport to Dallas that will include what brand of shoes the flight attendant was sporting. I'll even tell you what song I was thinking about (not even listening to) as I noticed the shoes. I can't help it, I am a stickler for detail. It can be annoying to those I'm engaging in conversation as well as to me. It's as if I have an illness and that illness is the inability to leave any fact or emotion out of a story. However, I think it's better to have too many details as opposed to the above examples.