Last week, I posted the first in what will surely be an ongoing series of weekly, biweely, who-knows-what-frequency posts. Specifically, this post was made up of three of the worst emails I received last week.

One of them (#3) was of particular interest.

THE EMAIL:

So, to summarize your book, if somebody is following me on Twitter, I should follow him — yes?

Thanks, D.

As I mentioned, the reason this particular email was so golden is because it was not anonymous but was rather sent from my father — “D” for “Dadd” (sic). Thinking this was funny, I replied to the email and put my mother on the chain. I said something innocuous like, “Isn’t this funny?”

My mother, in true form, responded quickly from her dogged ipad saying:

Tell the idiot to lead.

Now that took me by surprise. In my years of Twitter, I have never actually considered the linguistic implications of following and it’s worldwide antonym “lead”. It took me a second to understand what she meant. Then I got it, smiled, and thought that was quite clever of her.

Later that week I was having dinner with my parents when the aforementioned email chain came up. My mother, chuckling, said something along the lines of “There are some real idiots that read your blog!”

And I stopped for a second. And then, in the clear light of day, I realized my mother hadn’t realized my father had sent the email. Why is beyond me of course, as it was sent from his address, reeks of his sarcasm, and was signed “D” – which he often uses for Dadd (sic).

Yes, mom: THE IDIOT IS YOUR HUSBAND.