Less the fool me

Ladies and gentlemen, a miraculous event occurred this morning at 8:40 am. After I drove the man child down to the bus, I returned to my snug home and plopped in front of the computer to enjoy my first email check-in of the morning. I check my email approximately 47 times daily. Yes, I know . . . .

I use Google mail as a reader for all my mail accounts. I could now spend an entire paragraph trying to explain what I mean by that last sentence, for those who have no idea what I'm talking about. But I'm not going to. If you want to understand more about this strange place called the interweb, cyber net, space thingy, ask a teenager. I'm just along for the ride.

So I'm looking at my email. Google has a line up top screaming "New! Gmail autopilot" Naturally, being a sucker for exclamation points, I clicked. It described this really cool new service Gmail is providing that will automatically answer your email with responses that are carefully calibrated to your style and manner of writing.

The page starts out "As more and more everyday communication takes place over email, lots of people have complained about how hard it is to read and respond to every message. This is because they actually read and respond to all their messages." It then goes on to show how Gmail Autopilot would respond to the ubiquitous Nigerian money opportunity.

When I finished that paragraph, I was so, so excited. For the first time in known memory, I got an April Fools Joke before someone told me it was April Fools! Unless you know me, you have no idea how momentous this is. I appear to be slightly gullible. I swallow most everything--hook, line and sinker.

Remember George Plimpton's great Sports Illustrated article on "The Curious Case of Sid Finch"? The first clue that it was a hoax might have been, for those savvy readers, that the issue in which it resided was published on April 1st, 1985. That factoid did not permeate the dentine of my mind, apparently.

Others might have perked their ears up over sentences like "Sidd Finch pitched wearing one work boot and one bare foot" or perhaps "This guy says to me, 'I have learned the art of the pitch. . .' Some odd phrase like that, delivered in a singsong voice, like a chant, kind of what you hear in a Chinese restaurant if there are some Chinese in there."

But noooo. I read the whole article and was fascinated and so excited for the future of baseball!

I began to enthusiastically discuss Sidd with my baseball-minded husband. He is either more jaded or less easily duped, because he looked at me slack-jawed then burst into raucous laughter, the likes of which I have yet to live down.

So you might well imagine my elation this morning on figuring out, for once, prior to the dupe-age. Worry not, my friends. I'm sure I will continue to provide you with years and years of gullible laughter. But, at least today, the joke's not on me. :-)

At least not THAT one.

Liz