Reply vs. Reply to All

You wanna laugh? This is good.

But before we get to the good part, I want to give a quick update on Ranger. Something interesting happened while I was out of town. He called me while I was in New Mexico. He was down. And yes, he'd managed to bring himself down. Again. He'd been looking at pictures on his computer and found old Christmas pictures of his kids. So, he dwelled on them and spiraled into a depression.

"It was just so happy," he said. "Before everything went to crap." And he really wanted to talk about how everything went to crap and how wrong it was and how it changes his kids' lives.

But I was dealing with a funeral. A funeral, for pity sake. I was surrounded by grieving people. I could not participate in helping him wallow in how bad the end of his marriage was. And we all know how well Blogget deals with insistent wallowing. I hate it.

So, I told him I was sorry and yes, I understood, but I just couldn't get into it just then. And you know what happened? The next time I talked to him, he was fine. Over it. Not even mentioning it.

Good for Ranger. That's a step in the right direction!

Okay, so now for the good part.

I'm working away in my little world this morning, and my desk phone rings. I don't know the area code, which usually means it's a vendor. I've been putting lots of them off lately because I just don't have time to focus on their product and what it can do to revolutionize distance learning.

"Blogget?" said a soft male voice.

"Yes, speaking," I answered, in my professional I'm-in-charge voice.

"Hey, girl," he said, and I could hear the smile already. "It's South Carolina."

I smiled, too. "Hey! What's new?" See, he never calls my work phone, so he must have really wanted t get ahold of me.

He laughed. "Well, I've had a really wild couple of minutes here, and I needed to talk to someone about it."

For a moment, I worried that he'd found this blog. I replayed everything I've said about him here, in a flash.

Here's what happened to sweet SC. He and I are both presenting at a conference in November, and we just got the preliminary schedule this morning. When he looked at it, he saw that his presentation was opposite his friend Grace's presentation, and he wanted to see it. So, he replied and asked if his presentation could be flipped with someone else's so he could attend the other session.

Now, Grace works for the institution hosting this conference. So, his request went to her coworkers. We know Grace from the professional organization that's having the conference. She very professional and is happily married.

Soon, he gets a reply from one of the conference organizers, Sue. The message had been forwarded to her to take care of. She tends to be quite rude and abrupt. She says: "I should have known this would happen. This guy has a crush on Grace and wants to go to her session. I'll talk to so-and-so about it."

This message was never intended to go to SC. But it did. He was stunned.

So, he called me.

He answered her, asking what exactly she meant by that. He also forwarded it to Grace. Then, he called Grace to make sure there was no misunderstanding. She's a friendly professional contact, but he would never cross that line with her.

Now, between you and me, SC is all about being a Southern Gentleman. Sometimes, that sweet charm can be taken as flirting. He doesn't see it, but it happens. Even though he draws the line at flirting with married women, he could have been misunderstood. And I told him that.

"Then I guess what I need to do is reply again and make my case," he said. "I need to tell them, calmly and clearly, 'I am a professional. I do not have a crush on Grace. We are acquaintances through this organization. If you doubt me, ask Blogget Jones. We fucked each other's brains out last year, and I have a crush on her.'" Then he laughed. "How's that?"

"Well, maybe not the fucking part," I said, laughing. But I made note: SC wants me to know he has a crush.

Then, he got an email. It was from Grace. She was calling Sue about the email.

Hot on the heels of that, he got a reply from Sue. "Have you ever had one of those days?" she started. She continued on with an elaborate story about a student worker who was using her computer earlier. Sue had left the reply to SC open and unfinished. This student (with no apparent ax to grind) decided to add the part about SC's crush and send it.

Smell that? It's someone's pants on fire.

All I could say to him as he read it to me was, "Wow."

We laughed about it for awhile longer, but we realize we have a heads-up now. Sue is a vicious gossip. Watch your back.

But dang, it's funny that she got caught!