Of course the downside of having a son/sibling/uncle/nephew/husband/stepdad who writes a weekly column is this: what happens at family gatherings doesn’t necessarily stay at family gatherings. I regularly have trotted out anecdotes—from embarrassing to amusing—over the past dozen years. Time and again I am reminded that my family members are pretty good sports and can take a jab in the spirit in which it is intended. They also have a talent for landing a few jabs of their own. I readily admit I have made myself a target for unfair ridicule from my brothers and sisters.
The stuff that goes out for public consumption, however, has some of the warts removed and I generally keep a lid on a few of the more personal antics. Last week, however, my family found out we probably have been sharing some of our more intimate thoughts with a complete stranger over the past couple of years. Apparently, despite her efforts to w
arn us…I will be the first to admit that my family has an above average sense of humor. Having the best sense of humor in the family, I should naturally be the one to make that judgement… Last week, during a typically amusing exchange of emails among my family about food assignments for Thanksgiving and a debate on how long my brother Todd and his wife Susan has been married, we were jarred by the fact that we have been sharing a bit too much information with a young woman named Meghan Wilmes. Turns out she has been included in mass emails originating from my brother Clayton, as well as all the “reply all” responses…some of which have gone on for days, even weeks. In the middle of a rather intense discussion of pie, we received the following email:
Hello to all,
I've been following your emails which have made me laugh. I wish I could come to your Thanksgiving....homemade pies!!!! I know I've told a few of you but apparently not everyone, I'm not actually in your family. :) It seems many of you have my email address saved as a Mark Wilmes and although I do have an uncle Mark I know its not the same one. Anyway, just thought I would send this to everyone because I've also received family pictures and some emails about people with medical conditions which may be urgent at times.
I hope you all have Happy Holidays!
Meghan
I could almost sense the dead silence of my family members as they mentally reviewed the emails and pictures that have been sent out in the past, in an attempt to assess the collateral damage we may have inflicted on this young innocent person. That silence wouldn’t last long. My sister Barb called and we were laughing so hard we could barely speak.
I couldn’t stop going back to the line, “I'm not actually in your family. :)”
It doesn’t take a baseball bat to the head to get through to the Wilmes family, by golly.
A little history: Back in April of 2007, I signed myself up for a web-based email account, enabling me to communicate from my laptop when I was out and about. In Clay’s address book, a combination of an old work email and my new web-based address was added, instead of the actual address. This merging of old and new ended up accidentally making Meghan an innocent bystander in the affairs of our family. We still really don’t know which pictures she has seen and how much she knows about our past medical conditions, and she isn’t saying. We do know, however, she can identify family members from photos.
Despite the faux pas by Clay, entering the wrong email address, I have somehow been blamed for the mix-up by at least one family member, as is revealed in the following missive:
Well, if Mark didn’t feel he was so important as to have a dozen different e-mail addresses, then maybe we wouldn’t have this issue and poor Meghan could live her life in peace.
Nicole
This is troubling, as I really only have three email addresses (home, web-based and office, the last of which I was forced to take, regardless of my perceived “importance”), so I am a bit worried about who Nicole is communicating with by way of those other nine email addresses.
Of course, never being a family to back away from being entertaining, everyone continued to include Meghan in the follow-up emails, and even sent her a family picture and invited her to Thanksgiving (you will notice I included the family picture, in which Meghan graciously added her own picture and sent it back to us). She still can’t get rid of us.
Of all the places those loose cannon emails could have been sent, in the end it turns out Meghan lives in Hugo, MN.
That’s not all…
That “uncle Mark” she referred to??? He and his wife are members of the same church as my sister Darla up in Cloquet.
I would guess that Meghan still hasn’t heard the last from us. I personally added her to my address book. How could we not send her a picture from this weekend’s family gathering? It wouldn’t surprise me if she gets invited to the annual Wilmes Family Board Game Weekend at Clay and Linda’s in the Twin Cities in February.
Of course, I’ll have to send her the link to this blog…
In the meantime, whether she likes it or not…welcome to the family Meghan. Sorry.
Oh, and we’ll be expecting photos and descriptions of your medical procedures in the coming weeks. It is only fair.
You have our addresses…
*****
Don’t look for a blog next week...although maybe a picture. I’ll be attending Thanksgiving II in New Ulm with Kathy’s family. I’m giving myself the week off. If you signed on to this blog recently, take the opportunity to scroll down and check out the archive of previous blogs.
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