Just My Type

Have you ever gotten a really long e-mail from someone and gotten that feeling deep down inside of you that took you back to taking the verbal portion of the SAT? I really love getting e-mail, but when I see one long paragraph, I immediately lose all interest. I got one recently and it took me five minutes to read it because my eyes weren't up to the challenge. My friend is just very wordy and she just needs a little e-mail intervention. I don't think she even knows about the spellcheck function.

If people are going to write lengthy "e's," I think they should take a little time to organize them like a college term paper. I need to have a thesis statement and five paragraphs, all organized with an attached works cited list. Ok that's a little extreme and I would never ask anyone to do that, but how can people subject others to that type of torture? E-mail is supposed to be short and succinct. I have enough trouble remembering the names of my gentlemen callers. How can she expect me to remember what she wrote in the e-mail?

I recently spent some time with my little nieces and I learned that if you want someone to stay interested in something, you have to find a way to keep their focus. My friend knows that I like puzzles and other things along that line, so I will suggest that she put all her e-mails in rebus form. A rebus is a thingie where words are replaced by pictures. If you've ever seen that old gameshow "Concentration" or "Classic Concentration," then you'd know what I'm talking about.

Quick sidebar: I loved that show! It was Alex Trebek's time to shine as a witty and sarcastic middle aged man. He's no Peter Tomarkin, but oh yeah. Mmmhmm!

We've been getting lazy since e-mail became the preferred method of communication across the country. My poor eyes can't take much more of the long paragraphs or mistypes. I shudder when I imagine reading those e-mails from high school kids where every other letter is capitalized so it looks something like this:

ThE qUiCk BrOwN fOx JuMpS oVeR tHe LaZy DoG.