Spam, Egg, Sausage, and Spam

So I got this e-mail today to my personal account--meaning, the address I don't give out to anyone I don't know in real life; sadly, MOTH put it down on a form for my IRA, and those bastards sold me out, so I do often get offers for "Dear User, Would You Like 80% off Vi@gra" and "Tired of Having a Small Penis?" (the answers to which are, "no, thanks," and "not yet"). So when I saw a name I didn't recognize and opened the e-mail to find basically an ad for a local realtor, I was ticked (ooh, Falling, such strong language!). There was some sort of St. Patrick's Day connection, but basically it was an ad for this guy, with the poorly-punctuated tag line, "Oh by the way I’m never too busy for any of your referrals."

I wrote back immediately, saying, "I have no interest in receiving future correspondence from your agency. I have never heard of you and don't know how you got my information. Please delete my address from your company's database and do not contact me again." I guess I could've just labeled it spam, but it irked me (again with the potty mouth) that yet someone else had gotten ahold of this address. Hey, at least I refrained from writing, "Oh, by the way, you're missing two commas in that last sentence." Clicked send, trashed the e-mail, and went on with my day.

A few hours later I got a reply. I opened it and found a (still strangely comma-free message) from the guy, apologizing for the e-mail, then telling me that he was a friend of this couple that we know, and we'd met him last fall with his kids and talked children's theatre. And that the kids were interested in learning more, but that he was sorry he'd bothered me and wouldn't e-mail again.

So then I wrote back (isn't this riveting, how I take you through each step in real time?) apologizing myself, explaining that I thought it was spam, and saying, of course we'd love to talk theatre with your kids. And then I drove home, blushing alone in my car at the thought that he would tell our mutual friends what a bitch I'd been, and how he was just trying to reach out...for the children!

Now, I know that, as MOTH pointed out when I told him the story, this isn't exactly a social faux pas. Not like I failed to send a thank you note or farted at the opera or anything. If anything, I think that this guy was the one who was weird, randomly sending me crap about his business, rather than writing, "Hi, it's Joe Unknowntoyou, friend of Mr. and Mrs. Mutualfriend. I wanted to ask you about..." But I still felt weird and embarrassed afterwards, mostly because I'd been all righteous about my reply, like, take that, Spammy Spamsalot! and instead it was just this (as I remember him) nice, mild-mannered guy trying (awkwardly) to reach out. I am too often awkward myself to want to dump on anyone else's awkwardness.

I knew that I was not technically in the wrong here--I acted in good faith, I promptly responded, accepting responsibility for my actions and apologizing--and yet, I spent my commute home kicking myself. Like I do.

Do you all do this? Do your brains wait until you are otherwise peaceful and content (or, better yet, about to fall asleep) and then remind you of that time you tried to gaily jump the rope barrier in the college cafeteria and tripped instead? Or that time freshman year, when a much cooler sophomore considerately slipped you a note that said, "I think you have your period" in the middle of algebra class? (These are, of course, just examples, based on absolutely no real people, especially not ones who blog.)

And do you still blush, ten, fifteen years later? Do you still mentally--or occasionally physically--slap yourself on the forehead, incredulous about your own stupidity? 'Cause I do, and I don't know why. It serves no purpose. I have learned everything I could possibly learn from the experiences (respectively, "don't try to jump over stuff, you leaden-footed fool" and "go on the Pill already so that you're not caught by surprise...again"). I have done many worthwhile things with my life in the meantime, and have suffered much worse tragedies. So why do I still torture myself with this?

Perhaps I was evil in a former life. It would explain a lot, including my college dating career and my eyebrows.