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It Came From The Inbox!

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Over the last few weeks, my email inbox has been flooded with newsletters.

I’ve got two about news, one of ‘feel good’ news, two ‘word of the day’ types, a history facts newsletter, one about trivia, and a whole slew of political ones. All the sort of thing you’d get if you subscribed to them. Or maybe signed up for through Substack subscriptions.

The problem is, I didn’t subscribe to any of the above newsletters. At least if I did, I don’t remember subscribing. Maybe I get up in the middle of the night, doing a little somnambulism, turn on my computer, then find weird newsletters to subscribe to and sign-up for them. But probably not.

I do have a large number of newsletters I have legitimately subscribed to. I remember going through the motions to sign up for them. I remember all the double opt-ins where I had to click on a link in a email so I could complete the subscription process. I get enough of them that I can’t keep up with them all. I try. But I miss different ones from time to time. There a few that I haven’t opened any from the person who sent them for a year or more. They sit in my inbox, waiting patiently for the time I come back around to them. I imagine the joy they feel when after languishing for so long in the inbox, lonely, thinking they’ve been abandoned and long forgotten, that they get opened, and read, finally fulfilling their purpose. Only to find that they get deleted as soon as I’ve read them so I can free up storage space for all the other newsletters still coming in. (OK, I don’t imagine all that. I’m a writer. I can get away with literary license.)

I should probably unsubscribe from a few of them. Maybe most of them. There are a few I read consistently, so those would be keepers. But the others might as well go. I have unsubscribed from some of them over the years. Since I don’t do web development for a living any longer, a lot of tech and web development newsletters have fallen by the wayside. Some on business have also gone bye-bye. I think I’ll read the next issue of each one I get and then decide to keep it or get rid of it. If it doesn’t ‘wow’ me, it’s gone.

As for all the ones that have mysteriously started showing up for no apparent reason? They get marked as spam immediately, then deleted. I just feel like I’m having to spend all my time pruning my inbox and clearing it out, rather than actually getting anything done.

As for my emails, I hope you find them interesting, my Hordeling. I’m hoping I’m not one of those emails that gets left sitting in your inbox for moths (or years!) at a time, unloved and unread. If you’ve got any topics you’d like me to talk about leave a comment and let me know. And if you have a friend that you think might enjoy my missives, please send them to my website and tell them to sign-up on my newsletter. They’ll even get some free flash fiction tales for their efforts. Thanks!

If you’d like to support my efforts, why not buy me a chocolate chip cookie through my Ko-Fi page? https://ko-fi.com/jhusum

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