Butterfly Edit
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Butterfly trotted down the hill from her house a bit ago.  She had her laptop with her. 

“This thing’s tied up in knots,” she said.

“What were you doing?” I asked, sighing.

“I was trying to write to that person who has my last name,” she said.

The other day she received an email from a cousin of mine.  One of the names on the distribution list was the same as Butterfly’s maiden name and wasn't a person she knew.

 My sister happened to be visiting when this occurred and we showed Butterfly how you can capture those names and add them to your contacts - which is why I always use the Blind Copy feature for most emails.  I don’t need the Butterflies of the world out there harvesting my contacts and sending them weird emails.

So I untangled her computer, which really was tied up in knots, and got her started on composing a new email.

“What should the subject be?” she wondered.

“Just don’t make it anything freaky or she’ll put it right into her junk mail folder,” I advised.

I think she made it something like “Are we related?”  Oh, yeah, that won’t scare her!

She then launched in with something along the lines of, “Do you think we could be related?” in the body of the email.

“Wait!  Don’t say that.  First introduce yourself, and don’t use any of your goofy shorthand.  She won’t have me there to explain it to her.  Start out with explaining how you got her name, and that her name is the same as your maiden name, and that you grew up in PA, etc.”

Butterfly sat and worked.  She read aloud as she typed.  “I was married to my husband since the end of the war … “

“What war?”  I asked. “There have been a few wars over the last several years.  You have to put WWII.”

“How do I make the II thingy?” she asked.  I showed her.

She continued.  “I was married to my husband from the end of WWII until 2001, when he bit the dust.”

“NOOO!!!  Delete that!  You can’t say that to someone you don’t even know!”

She tried again, “I was married to my husband from the end of WWII until 2001, when he left me.”

“Oh, my gosh,” I groaned.  “No. You cannot be saying these things.  This person will have no idea what that means.  They’ll think you’re divorced.  Tell them he died.  You can type that word, can’t you?”

She finally got the sentenced completed properly.

I further advised her to put in her parents’ names and how many children there were in the family, just in case that would help this person recognize a family connection. 

Butterfly then wrote, “I was born many moons ago.”  I didn’t even attempt to modify that.  The poor recipient is probably going to think someone around here is of Native American descent, which I know for a fact isn’t the case.  Butterfly is Polish, through and through. 

She then signed off with her usual “BCNU”.  Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall when that email is received!

Wild Butterfly