You've Still Got Mail

 I cleared out the inbox of my gmail account and have been checking it sporadically playing whack-a-mole of unsubscribe to every junky email that pops up. On some unsubscribes I get a little cheeky and say exactly why I'm unsubscribing to the daily emails from the eco-toilet paper I bought 48 rolls from just one month ago. For one, despite my IBS, I don't poop that often to have pounded through 15,320 feet of toilet paper an average of 512 feet per day. For number 2 (hah) it's something I use enough that I won't forget immediately of it's existence if I don't buy it on a daily basis. It has a place in my mind. I told them off and said Charmin never hits me up, be like Cha-Cha-Cha-Charmin and bugger off. 

Other emails are election campaigns. Due to the senate runoff in Georgia I am getting my ActBlue donation requests, which I don't mind doing, but are at the tail end of a shit stain of four years of government. Mitch McConnell is showing his Dumbledore poisoned dark mark and Lindsay Graham is still cleaning white stains off his little blue dress, I don't need a reminder to donate to Democrats. I know what is at stake. Half our country is battling over a surgical masks while Japan looks on behind a cute panda face covering they've been wearing for years and wonders what the hell America's problem is. We look like the chimpanzee at the zoo that poops then picks it up and eats it, vomits, then repeats. 

And Pottery Barn. Fucking Pottery Barn. You have a lovely bland aesthetic that has people go "yeah that'll work" and "sure, that'd be nice." But I assure you once I have purchased my simple leather sofa I don't need you to send me emails of your cream colored plate collection. You are nice, but I know what you've got to offer. Close your eyes and imagine your judgmental prissy aunts house whose house your mom was always jealous of because it was so clean only to realize that clean house came with a miserable family. That is the Pottery Barn catalog. I have unsubscribed to their emails a million times over but like that one random long body hair it keeps popping up. 

If it's not an email that is irritating it is the Ring app giving me a neighborly updates. It's mostly people afraid of black people .... I mean a stranger in the neighborhood. They were walking a pomeranian at 2 in the afternoon and wearing a Patagonia parka.... but you know they're black.... I mean I haven't seen them before. Other updates are telling people to lock their cars as riff-raff (assumed black people) have been opportunistic. I have even read such messages as "they're coming in from the city" which again is code for I AM AFRAID OF BLACK PEOPLE. The only time I have ever posted on the app is when I was tired of being woken up by shot guns. I live near a creek and it's duck hunting season. I was just confirming it was hunting season for my own sanity as it kept waking me up. I was told "It's a gun, you're not in New York anymore, we hunt in Virginia. Get use to it." First of all I'm not from New York and I wasn't asking if it was a gun. I was checking if it was legal to be hunting about 100 feet from a subdivision. Second of all to that rude man (because we know a man is the only person who found that joke entertaining) there are inevitably more hunters in New York than in here. Their population is huge and highly wooded in the majority of the state. 

This rude comment set me off for the day as I took the dog to the park. He was off the leash because he's a 65 pound golden retriever who is afraid to step next to a box and will slowly lick your hand sensually for as long as you can handle a limp tongue lolling across your hand with direct doggy eye contact. The point is he is harmless at worst and the sweetest honey bear to have ever existed at best. So he was off leash peeing on a variety of trees in the woods when a Park Karen stopped her jog from 200 feet away to yell "Put him on a leash, it's the rules and no one ever follows the rules." When I later saw her jogging I screamed 8 feet from her "WEAR A MASK ITS THE RULES AND NO ONE FOLLOWS THE RULES." I should have thrown in a "you're not in North Dakota anymore."

I finally looped back into my email and had a new flavor email from June Shine, my favorite alcholic hard kombucha. I had recently emailed a mocktail beverage company to see if their mocktail mixes were pasturized, so I as a pregnant woman, could consume it without fears. They responded very kindly that it was pasturized and my customer service experience with them was excellent overall. I felt I had done myself and baby right. As I looked at the new June Shine limited edition flavor I thought I should buy this for my husband for Christmas. We both love the drinks and the flavor was described as lemon, orange, pinapple. My favorites. I quickly decided I was comfortable with having a single sip of delightful alcoholic drink if I bought it for Ky. I wouldn't drink an entire can, just a single sip to see how it tastes. I then hemmed and hawed. It's a kombucha afterall, I had read that wasn't safe to drink while pregnant. I began to pen email to June Shine to ask if their kombucha was pasturized and therefore safe for pregnant women. It was at this point I realized they will be horrified a pregnant woman is emailing if she can drink their alcohol. "I'm not afraid of the alcohol" I would assure them, "just the kombucha. I've read it's not safe!" I decided it was time to step away from the inbox for a while.