As promised, I am delivering one of two embarrassing moments in my life (and my life seems to be riddled with them) that involve email. This happened a few years ago so I have dealt with the stupidity of the whole thing and it does not wake me up at night any more. Apparently my judgment is not the best after a couple of drinks.
We have friends (stop laughing, we do) whose son’s goal in life was to become a fireman (yes, I tried to talk him out of it, it didn’t work. His dream was bigger than my wisdom.) Over a few years this young man took every course you can possibly imagine and dedicated his entire life to getting his crazy ass into a firehall. He happened to stop in one night while his parents were celebrating something with us, I’m guessing we might have been toasting the fact that we all just woke up that morning (really, we are not getting any younger you know!). It was then the young fella explained the difficulties he was having applying for firedude positions. It seemed that although he was educated, fit and fabulous they would not consider him because of his youth. (Or yoootth if you are in New York).
Where does the embarrassing moment that you are all waiting for begin you ask? About now: I, in all my glory, (marg. a. rita.) went all Queen Injustice when I found out that one of the towns he was going to apply to was CHARGING people to just look at their credentials. What? You can’t be serious? He’s going to pay you to look at his application? I don’t think so! You should consider yourself lucky Junior sent his application to your horse riding, cow plopping, no mountain town in the first place! Well it was not enough for me to just go off about it, I took my salt rimmed attitude to the computer and promptly found the towns “mayor” and emailed him to let him know exactly what I thought of him making people pay for applying to work in his town. Oh it was not pretty. In the end I told him he was a criminal and he could not have our talented young lad and anyone who pays to apply for a job is just stupid and he deserves those type of people working for him anyway. Good luck when Town Hall catches on fire buddy! (I'm pretty sure I cc'd the Chief Fire Mucka Mucka too!) Oh did I feel better after that little ditty was done and I hit SEND. Of course until the next morning when I went into the SENT items (only after dredging up some memory of even being on the computer the night before!) and re-read the thing. Did you know that you not only slur your words when drunktalking you also slur your words when drunkwriting? Amazing phenomenon. (Every single time I even think that word I always sing the song from The Muppet Show – phenomenon, du du da da, phenomenon du da da da – please tell me a couple of you remember this?)
Future note: no matter how witty you think you are after a few drinks, it’s a delusion. That wonderful, warm feeling of superiority is false bravado. You seriously get dumber. Trust me. Therefore the rule stands: Never, and I really mean never, let me get near any kind of communication device when under the influence. I have already looked into purchasing a breathalyzer for my Blackberry.
Footnote to story: The young lad did get a position as a Fireman, in his own hometown. Apparently they know talent when they see it. And no, he did not take my advice to put “Have own pillow, will travel” on his resume.
