i'm too sexy for this quota

I just cant’ let go. I’ve got a problem and it’s beginning to spiral out of control. I don’t have the stomach for deleting old emails. For someone like myself who has about five-hundred and sixty-nine email accounts, I’m taking up approximately 5.83% of the Internet. If I’m going to take up that much of the Internet, let it be with full resolution photos of my perfect hair or sound bytes of me talking about my favorite subject.


I think there are a lot of contributing factors to this problem. For starters, it’s not good to be both lazy and a member of multiple email lists. I’m on countless email groups and listservs. Okay, not really countless, but it makes this a more dramatic posting. I just cannot muster the effort to delete a message after I’ve read it. Move the pointer. Click delete. Wait. I see at least four steps there. Generally, I prefer one step – next. If I’m going to *read* these emails and maybe even respond, effort is a super-important thing not to waste. There is also the “what if” factor. For example: “What if I need this email from Steve that he sent six months ago asking me if I could bring a bag of ice to his barbeque?”

Why would I ever need to read that email again?

But if I did? And I deleted it? How screwed would I be?

I go through phases where I’ll clean up my email boxes and I’ll even delete messages after I’ve read them. I always fall off the wagon. I just don’t see this changing or getting better. So, when there is no room left on the Internet for such important things as Martha Stewart’s head superimposed on a Baywatch model’s body, or flash animations of singing poo – you’ll know who to blame.

The day may be closer than you think…