Never scare a writer...

So yesterday, my editor at the newspaper I freelance for, sent me a new assignment via email. I was visiting friends last night, so once I got home and got Little Miss to bed, I opened my laptop, pulled up the emails from my editor, and hit reply to write back and ask a few questions.

When I hit send and the email processed, I realized that the "sent" notification yahoo shows after sending an email had a completely different subject title than the one I had just sent. Instead of the boring, article-related subject title that had been there when I wrote my email, my sent mail showed this one instead...

Who drank my crystal Pepsi?

I'm not kidding.

My jaw dropped.

I had just emailed my editor a note at 10:00 at night asking her who drank my Pepsi.

That part alone was bad enough. I quickly emailed her an explanation and apology, and then I started getting nervous. Was my email being hacked into? Was someone spying on my computer? Then I thought of horror movies and how maybe my laptop had a ghost wondering where her drink was and she was trying to convey a late night message to me about her death...

Yeah. Never scare a writer.

My skin was craaaawling!! I don't believe in ghosts, of course - but at nighttime, alone in the dark living room, wondering what the heck was going on with my laptop, well. It was food for my very vivid imagination.

I called my parents to see if my dad might have an idea, being a computer tech, but he was unavailable and my mom had no clue and was as curious/creeped out as I was. So, keeping her on the phone, I bravely went back to my haunted laptop and googled the phrase in quotes "Who drank my crystal Pepsi?"

The hit returned several blog links. I opened one, quite nervous...and thank the Lord, some random person in the blog-o-sphere explained the phenomenon. Apparently, yahoo mail has a feature (and a completely unnecessary one at that!) where if you click the subject button beside the subject line, it provides you with a random, witty subject title all by itself. I somehow clicked that button when typing my email, and there you have it. Thank you, random blogger.

No ghosts. No need for a priest, or a new laptop.

I emailed my poor editor to explain. She laughed and said she thought I was just trying to be funny!

Yes. Hilarious.

Thanks yahoo.