Voted off the island

Several years ago, when there weren’t as many Alters as there are today—grandchildren and all, you now—we used to draw names for a gift exchange at Christmas. One year, one beloved daughter-in-law inadvertently was left off the list and wrote plaintively to ask, “Was I voted off the island?”

Remember that TV show? I can’t call the name, but it had to do with marooning groups of people in challenging situations and seeing how they survived. Each week, one of each group was voted off the island.

Well, I’ve apparently been voted off a technological island. For about six months, I’ve noticed that my emails to some people go into their junk mail. I check my junk mail daily, but you’d be surprised at how hard it is to get others to do it. Excuses range from not knowing how to forgetting. But now there’s a new wrinkled to my problem.

My emails to writers’ groups—one large, one small—and to select individuals simply do not go through. I finally asked an administrator of the small list, and she checked, said my name has a B next to it, indicating mail bounced back. This means I happily send mail off not knowing if it will reach its destination or not, and I have no idea who might be trying to write me. I wrote my three distant children today, and they apparently got the email—I heard back from all three. And it seems mail sent from my phone goes through but not from the laptop, but the tiny keyboard on the phone is a problem for my clumsy fingers.

I reported it to IT at TCU, where my server is, but of course I reported it just before they shut down for the long weekend. Sigh. Nothing will be done until Tuesday, and even then, it will be slow because they’re experiencing the usual back-to-school rush of problems. My timing is incredibly bad, and I am left not knowing who hears me and who doesn’t. Are you there, world?

No wonder I keep going back to bed.