Karma

Writing prompt from Mama Kat: Tell about a time you accidentally “replied all” or sent an email to the wrong person by mistake.
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One time, I bought three dozen muffins from the Gingerbread Construction House. If you live here locally, or someplace where you are lucky enough to have the GCH, you know that a. the muffins are AMAZING and b. the muffins are expensive ($25+ a dozen).

I was doing it as a favor for a sister. She was having a surprise 40th Birthday Party for her fiancée and his family was coming in from out of town. They were staying the night and she was having them all over for brunch the following day. So as she was telling me about this and I offered to help….she gratefully accepted my offer and asked if I could do muffins or bagels or something (we were also invited to the house).  I said sure, suggested the GCH and she said great, 3 dozen should do it...had I known it was going to be that many, I would have just gone to Dunkin Donuts....but I had already spoken and did not feel I could go back on it...

We pick up the muffins on the way out of town....when I got in the car, I tossed the muffins in the back seat and we headed north. I looked at my receipt like 30 minutes later (who knows why) and realized the little girl at the register had only charged me for 1 Dozen!!!!

I called the store, explained to them what happened and ASKED them to charge me for the other 2 as I did not want the girl to get in trouble.

They said well, we should have charged you anyway and would have once we figured it out…..how about thanks for being honest and calling

The kicker: my sister's future-in-laws skipped town, no brunch...but we had $80 worth of fancy muffins

Then, one time, Sean and I were out with Lucy, 50 minutes from home when we realized we had both forgotten our wallets. We had no identification, no cash, no debit cards........and then I found a $20 bill on the ground.

Karma

Last night, I opened up my email and there was a message in there from someone....but it was not for me......that is s/he accidentally mailed it to be...and funny thing was, it was about me.

And it was not a nice email about me in that it was not singing my praises or commenting on what a genius I am, how pretty I am, what a great Mum I am or how inspirational my writing is.......it was not overtly mean but....but it was a bit cheeky, sort of sneaky and I felt a bit betrayed by it.

My stomach dropped, my blood ran cold and my face flushed....I could not focus or concentrate and when realized who s/he probably intended to send it to me and my blood ran colder as I thought about the implications and fall out......

Then, I was angry - like so angry I wanted to hit reply and pop off....but you never go with the rebuttal hatched during the anger phase.....you should always calm yourself down first.....

So then I wanted to reply all sweetly and be like "Umm, I think this was for _______. Just wanted to let you know.....would you like me to forward it for you? Oh, by the way, I'm glad you enjoyed my blog enough to share it! Thanks!"

But I didn't because that would have been like a 10 on the jerk-wad-scale.....

I showed it to Sean and he said well honey, you blog, you put yourself out there, you had to expect this at some point....and then I realized he's right.

I choose to post/write about certain things and I have to realize at some point, there is potential fallout. At some point, I will offend or inadvertently hurt someone....I will, at some point say something that will piss someone off...I probably already have.

The other day, I sent my post to Sean before I made it public to make sure he was okay with it; I did not want to post it if he felt like I was crossing a line...with him.

Had he said you know what Maria, you’re sharing a little too much about us, about me, I would have not posted it - but he has never edited  or censored me.....because this is me, this is who and what I am (reason number 22 I love/appreciate/respect him so much).

Having said that, if I write something I would not tell someone about (a sister, a friend, a stranger in line at the grocery store, a co-worker), I would not post it....which is why I never post intimate details about my relationship with my husband (ewww). I would never post anything someone has told me in confidence. I would never post something I think could hurt Sean. I would not post something I could not defend or justify - which is why sometimes I have to remind myself and people reading this what I'm posting are my thoughts and feelings.....MINE. They belong to me, I can have them if I want to, and you don’t have to agree with them...and I don't have to agree with your reaction to them.....

We went to bed and I stayed awake another 45 minutes stewing about this email.....I have no idea why I was so bothered by it....so hurt by it.....but because of who I am, my genetic make-up if you will,  I could not just let it go....first I have to process it then I can let it go....

But I was struggling with how to process it as I sort of brought this on myself...I'm the one who makes my blog public. I'm the one who invites people to follow the blog or get an email when I post...(side note: if you do opt to get an email when I post, and you want to comment on the post, don't hit reply to the email, I do not get it....it just gets sent to cyberspace and never read…….you have to email me directly at maria@sykesfamily.me)

So how to process this.....not worth confronting the person because really, it was quite a benign action......s/he was simply notifying someone else of something that if the other person really wanted to read, s/he could have found on her/his own...so really, I don't have that much of a right to be pissed off.....

Then, this morning, I got my weekly email from Mama Kat....more writing prompts for when I get the block. And would you believe prompt #2 read: Tell about a time you accidentally “replied all” or sent an email to the wrong person by mistake.

Believe it or not, I have never done that......one time I hit forward and instead of typing in Sean's address, I typed in the address of the person who sent it to me but it was just an email confirming the time for a meeting when we were looking for a new day care (I think I wrote to Sean Can you do 9am with Karen?)

But, it gave me the platform I needed to process the email I accidentally received last night......

Karma

Maria the Mum