Highjacked Mirror

On Sunday, November 18th, someone highjacked my non-work, free, email account, and locked me out.

The highjacker then sent an email from my address that, summarized, says that I am about to leave for Africa to join others working to fight any one of three different problems, in three possible countries, one of which is Nigeria. (Ring any alarms to you?) The email (of course) asks for money: specifically, it asks the recipeient to "borrow me" $1500. The spelling, syntax, and grammar are all a lot poorer than in my own writing.

I first learned of this from my sister, who humorously called to ask if I were still coming for Thaksgiving. I then had calls from two other people, and, today, had all sorts of emails, most but not all in response to my email alerting people to the highjacking.

This experience is serving as a mirror, showing how I am seen by others. I now know that I am seen by some friends/acquaintances as someone who could pop off to Africa, at what seems at least to me to be the last minute, to work on a service project. I'm glad to know that I am easily seen as public spirited and international.

On the other hand, I am a bit crabby that those same people who assumed I really am going on this trip also accepted that I could write something with so many mis-spellings and errors in both grammar and syntax. "Borrow me" some money? Give me a break - I don't write like that. Bad mirror!

Of course, if those friends who believed the post would go ahead and send me the requested money at home, I could forgive them their acceptance of me as the author of the post. (New mirror: devious schemer.)