Amanda Meadows - The Best American Emails: RE: a Collection of the Finest Accidental Reply Alls, Pharma Spams, and Anonymous Death Threats

The BEST

AMERICAN

EMAILS

Collected with help from Russias finest hackers.

Edited by Amanda Meadows

Written by

Amanda Meadows

Editor

Geoffrey Golden

Cover Design by Geoffrey Golden

Family Christmas photo by Breezy Baldwin on Flickr

Copyright 2017 Amanda Meadows

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the permission of the copyright owner, unless such copying is permitted by federal copyright law.

First Edition: June 2017

ISBN-13: 978-1-942099-31-4

devastatorpress.com

PRINTED IN AN OFFSHORE SERVER FARM KOREA

The greatest form of communication
is the email.

Ray Tomlinson, creator of the email

Foreword

Like many of you, Ive spent over 20 years reading and writing emails. But unlike you, I am a famous author and critic of the written word, so my opinion means so much more than yours. Ive sent emails to family, to strangers online, to colleagues at work, to the longtime subscribers of my newsletter on healthy and sustainable living.

When I go to the occasional literary function, I am enraged to find that the majority of my peers these so-called people of letters ignore the quotidian poignancy of the email! Seriously, whats up with that?

While there are billions of emails in cyberspace, the literary email circle is quite small. When I ran into dear friend and colleague, George Meyershaw, at the Em@ily Awards ceremony, he showed me his humblest work yet: an out-of touch complaint email to a local cable company. He asked, Does this capture the cultural cluelessness of the Baby Boomer white male, while betraying a whiff of his fearful devotion to the capitalist framework? My answer was, of course, yes and yes. It was included in this very volume.

Join me in a celebration of these tiny triumphs of human frailty and pettiness, of delusion and desperation. The inbox, she is deep. There are much further depths to plumb, and more attachments to scan for viruses.

Best in eCommerce

The internet sales world is built on emails: Newsletters, order confirmations, shipping confirmations, delivery confirmations, return confirmations, receipt of return confirmations, customer service complaint confirmations, customer service response notifications, public shaming of companys customer service response on social media, Medium.com think piece on the customer service scandal, backlash on customer inciting customer service scandal, customer changing name and moving to Canada to start a new life using a Zappos.ca account. The cycle is sacred.

[DealTime] Our Moms Imaginary Cat Friend Likes These Deals

To: waytogotommy@mac.com

From: dealtimedeals@dealtime.deals

Subject: [DealTime] Our Moms Imaginary Cat Friend Likes These Deals

WOW! DEALTIME YALL!

THESE DEALS ARE FOR...

L33T H4X0Rs ONLY!

6% off Thai Appetizers from 3pm-5pm

$60 for $45 worth of atomic buffalo wings at Wings4Mouth

Buy 2 get 50% free at OnlyToddlerSocks (not good for infant sizes)

FREE 4-minute couples massage at Thai Me Up, Thai Me Down Spa. Excludes oils.

40% off spin classes for dogs at City BarkBikes!

$12 off scalp removal at LUXE LaserBangs

FREE shipping on your next merkin from OvernightMerkins.com

2% off unlimited dumpster dibs membership at Freegan Grocery Warehouse

Follow us for more deals on Peach !

Deals only available between 1pm-4pm on 2/23. Redeem deals with the DealTime app, but only if downloaded to every device in household. No deals are valid.

Forward this to your 10 cheapest and least discriminatory acquaintances

Unsubscribe

Alert! You Left Something in Your Cart 3 Years Ago

To: darryljenkins@hotmail.com

From: ggecustomerservice@gge.com

Subject: Alert! You Left Something in Your Cart 3 Years Ago

Hey [Darryl],

Uh oh! Looks like you left this in your cart:

Description: Tommy Hilfiger Holder duffel bag
Color: appropriate

Size: big

Material: yes

Speaking of your shopping cart, we have a new website! Have you seen the slicker side of General Goods Emporium?

Click here to take a tour of our new crib! Thats still cool, right? Cribs?

Things are bad here, man. Bad! You dont even know what Ive seen. Each day, we wake up and pray that youll come back to your cart. Will you, please?

Well be honest. If you dont come back and buy this duffel bag, were going to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Do you really want that on your hands? Think about this.

Help us out. Come on. Youre not a monster, right?

Oh god. Im getting fired. Fuck. This happened to me at Groupon, too. Fuck!

Buy the bag!

Unsubscribe from General Goods Emporium

Receive double the emails from General Goods Emporium

Etsy Conversation with sweetvalentine23

To: nuthinbunttruble@gmail.com

From: support@etsy.com

Subject: Etsy Conversation with sweetvalentine23

Hi NuthinBuntTruble,

Sorry, but my bunting order arrived and it wasnt of the premium bunting standard that was promised. Despite your claims of buntiful amounts of pennants, There were too few bunts on my premium burlap bunting.

I had a beautiful barn wedding and your frankly embarrassing attempt at bunting ruined the entire evening. I submitted photos to the super popular wedding blog Something Borrowed, Something Bunted and they did *not* feature it! The reason, I assume, is because the bunting was not as on point as you claimed it would be. Im hemorrhaging Pinterest followers!

For added insult, my new mother-in-law comes from a long line of bunters and I was terribly embarrassed! After pressing my new husband several times, he admitted it set our marriage on the wrong foot and now he is having doubts.

Without bunting, we have nothing.

I would send the bunting back for an Etsy Bunting Refund, except we left the bunting at the site and forgot about it. If you expect me to drive all the way to a barn in Chesterton, Virginia just to retrieve your substandard bunting, you are a worse Etsy Seller than I thought !!

At this point, I cant get a refund on our wedding, either the wedding insurance doesnt cover bad bunting! My next email is to the wedding insurance company, because this is simply madness.

I will be expecting a PayPal from you IMMEDIATELY, along with a handcrafted artisanal apology.

Sincerely disappointed,

sweetvalentine23

Best in Work

From the rat race to the corner office, work is where emails are the most mandatory and pointlessness at once. Office emails are an inextinguishable evil and we deserve what we have created. The following are the most grating examples.

Content Warning: the idea of working; being at work.

Real quick

To: bradframingham@gmail.com

From: brad.no.50@weconnect.com

Subject: Real quick

Hey Brad F.!

Sup, man. Thanks again for being so chill about the new desk sharing rules at WeConnect, Californias #1 co-working and Apple product charging space. Our co-working spaces are meant to be hubs for collaboration.

That said, did you check out the Slack channel? I think there might be a miscommunication.

Were all about collaboration and sharing thats the whole vibe here! However, our policy is that desks can be split in half, but those halves cant also be split. So, no quarters. That also, unfortunately, means you cannot then split those quarters into 8ths, or split those 8ths into 16ths, amigo.