I have to say that my biggest e-mail buddy is Mailer-Daemon. This is the fellow that I receive daily e-mails from, whether I write to him or not. What a dedicated guy.
When I first started receiving e-mails from Mailer-Daemon, I knew it was a he. For whatever reason, I conjured up the dual images of Norman Mailer and Matt Damon, and my new e-mail friend came to life. Since that first vision, I can’t get them out of my mind whenever Mailer-Daemon arrives.
It may not seem that Norman Mailer and Matt Damon have much in common, but they do. Norman Mailer, the New Jersey-born Pulitzer prize winning author who penned such books as “The Naked and the Dead” and “The Executioner’s Song,” is now in his late seventies, has been married six times and sired nine kids. Samuel Goldwyn put him under contract in the late 1940s, but his film career never really took off. Co-founder of “The Village Voice” in 1955, Mailer made headlines for ending up in jail as a result of his protests against the Vietnam War.
Matt Damon is a thirtysomething Golden Boy who broke into film in “Mystic Pizza;” became a household name when he and buddy Ben Affleck wrote the screenplay for “Goodwill Hunting;” and changed the look of men in swimsuits and geeky glasses with his eerie performance in “The Talented Mister Ripley.” Two semesters shy of being a Harvard grad, he’s a major babe magnet (Minnie Driver, Winona Ryder and Penelope Cruz). And never been hitched.
I do digress about Mailer-Daemon. And like all of us, he has his plus and minus points.
The good side of Mailer-Daemon is when you send an e-mail to a wrong address. Recently I forwarded an article from Newsday to my husband at his office. For whatever reason, I typed his e-mail address incorrectly, and within seconds I received a response from Mailer-Daemon@gtei.net:
“This is the Postfix program at host chntva-smrlyl.gtei.net. I’m sorry to have to inform you that the message returned below could not be delivered to one or more destinations. For further assistance, please send mail to .”
Well, I took one look at what I’d typed in and realized it was operator error on my part. What if this had been the U.S. Postal Service? It would have taken days for me to realize I’d sent it to the wrong address. Go Mailer-Daemon!
And guess what? It doesn’t matter where in the world the recipient resides; the notice of incorrect address still comes back in the same amount of time. To test this, I sent an e-mail to my son’s college address in Boston, purposefully misspelling his name. Within seconds, I received this missive from Mailer-Daemon@bc.edu:
“The following errors occurred when trying to deliver the attached mail. Fraue: User unknown.”
A little short and snappy for my tastes, but it’s a long way from Sea-Tac to Logan Airport, so Mailer-Daemon probably suffered from jet lag.
So what happens if I send myself an e-mail to the wrong address (“I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself an E-Mail”)? I did just that, and Mailer-Daemon@whidbey.net wrote the kindest explanation of all:
“Hi. This is the qmail-send program at mail.whidbey.net. I’m afraid I wasn’t able to deliver your message to the following addresses. This is a permanent error; I’ve given up. Sorry it didn’t work out.”
Talk about warm and fuzzy … that’s island style for ya!
Well, now to the dark side of Mailer-Daemon. It’s no coincidence that the second half of Mailer’s name is Daemon. According to
www.websters.com, daemon is a variant of demon, “an evil super natural being or a devil.”
Devil mail! That’s exactly what I call it when I try to unsubscribe to mailing lists hawking everything from low-cost mortgages to potions that will enhance my body parts. This annoying removal process is done by replying to the irritating e-mail and typing in “Delete,” “Remove,” “Omit” or “Unsubscribe” in the subject line. Or you can go to a specific Web site where removal will supposedly take place within 24 hours.
But ain’t it funny how nobody’s home when you hit reply to unsubscribe? Here’s one of those bad Mailer-Daemon messages that drives me nuts, this from Mailer-Daemon@indiatimes.com:
“The original message was received at Sat., 9 Mar 2002 02:05: 27 +5350 from mailout.whidbey.net (209.166.64.124). The following messages had permanent fatal errors: gwen_brown@indiatimes.com. User quote has exceeded the limit. Rejecting mail. 554. Service unavailable).”
First off, I sent the e-mail on Fri., 8 Mar 2002 01:05:27, so Gwen doesn’t even have her calendar set right. And talk about a brusque explanation. Plus, don’t you think Gwen could ask her friends/neighbors to pick up her mail while she’s gone? Or buy a bigger mailbox? No way will I ever go into the online casino and sportsbook biz with Gwennie Poo. Talk about a bogus businessperson.
Give me my kinder, gentler Mailer-Daemon any day.
Contact Sue Frause at skfrause@whidbey.com.
