If you were analyze the email messages I send out, you would find the usual assortment. Many are to clients or associates, concerned about specific projects or issues. Some are to my kids about questionable charges on our credit cards. And a good number are of the "I'll be home at 7" variety to my wife. But probably the recipient with the greatest single total is me.
You can attribute it to a busy life or advancing senility, but I find that more and more that I write innumerable notes to myself. They can be scribbled on one of the many pads of paper we have around the house, or as evidenced by my inbox, thumb-typed and tossed my direction. They remind me of calls I have to make, stuff I need to remember to bring to work the next day, or the milk I promised to pick up my way home. I have even sent a note to myself to remind me to check the notes I sent to myself, an Alice in Wonderland situation if ever there was one.
I know there must be better ways to do this, so I did a search hoping to find a program that would be up to the task. I found ones that enable you to prioritize your tasks, others that order them with different colors and fonts, and some that sound alarms. There are even those that use the GPS function built into the phone. When you enter a reminder, you enter a location to match. When you get close to where the task needs to be performed... the grocery store, the dry cleaners, your house... it notifies you that you have something to do there. A little Big
Brother-ish, but it works.
But in looking for programs of this ilk, I came across what might be the ultimate reminder program. It's not aimed so much at the mundane day-to-day errands that we all need to deal with, but something on a much grander scale. So if you believe that the world is indeed a bubbling caldron of sin, will be coming to an end shortly and don't want to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time... literally... you may want to get yourself a personal account at YouveBeenLeftBehind.com.
For just $40 a year, believers can arrange for up to 62 people to get a final message exactly six days after the Rapture. For fellow heathens, that's the time when, according to end-of-days dogma, Christians will be swept up to heaven while doubters are left behind to suffer under a global government headed by the Antichrist. Note that Republicans should not confuse this with the first year of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid era.
According to the web site, "You've Been Left Behind gives you one last opportunity to reach your lost family and friends for Christ." You get to store and then send out 250 megabytes of documents to whomever you choose when the time comes. These might be last wills and testaments, heartfelt letters to relatives, or just "I told you so" notes where you really do get the last word.
Assuming that the end of world doesn't take down the internet and the delivery of emails (which many might argue is the very embodiment of all evil and one of the first things the Lord would go after) just how does it all work? According to the founder of the service, who prefers to remain anonymous so the devil doesn't spam him out of existence, "I have a team of Christian couples scattered around the U.S." He explains that at least one of them must log into the system every day. If they fail to log in for 3 days the system assumes the Rapture has taken place and they have been swept to heaven. Reminders are sent out for 3 more days, after which the system goes into action and sends out the emails. Kind of a "Fail/Saved" system.
Taken together, it would seem to be relatively foolproof, assuming the Messiah doesn't come during Christian Super Bowl week. After all, it was George Carlin who noted that if he were the Russians, we would attack at noon when everybody is testing their fire signals. Still, the system does have its attractions, including buddy fallback and a check/double check confirmation. I may not be born again, but it might be worth signing up. My first message? To myself, of course, reminding me to stop by the grocery store and pick up many, many loaves of bread.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford leaves a pen and paper in the bathroom for thoughts in the middle of the night. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review and The Scarsdale Inquirer.
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