I sent my dad an email forward earlier today. You know, those entertaining emails you’re forwarded, then forward in turn to people you think are bored at work. My dad responded with:

“DEAR CINDY:

HAD SEEN IT BEFORE, AS YOU KNOW UNCLE TERRY SENT ME ALL KIND OF THINGS FROM E-MAIL. MY G-MAIL BOX ALL WAYS 90% FULL.”

Come to think of it, I do remember my dad saying before that his oldest brother Terry would clog his gmail account with forwards. Gmail has the largest capacity of free online emails I know of, so clogging it is quite a feat. I responded:

“oh. maybe you can “block” him.”

I looked at my line, then figured my dad may misread the statement due to the language barrier, and misunderstand the tone due to the cultural barrier, so I added:

“haha. Just kidding.”

Dad responded:

“You may see my mail addr is not g-mail but the g-mail is for him only. There
are some thing are good and fun only take too many times to read it. He is
retired may have time to kill .”

Translation: As you can see, this email account I’m writing you from is not gmail; I reserve gmail for him only so he can clog up my inbox with forwards. He sends some good stuff, but it takes me too long to read it [what with the language barrier and all]. He’s retired so he probably has a lot of time on his hands.

I replied:

“maybe i’ll send him my laundry to do, then.”

My dad’s immediate response:

“Ha ha you wish.”

I had to recheck the “from” field to make sure this email came from him. If you have immigrant parents, you’d be as shocked as I am. Did he just say the colloquil quip “you wish”? And he got that it was a joke! Maybe I really don’t give my parents enough credit.