Everyone's a Detective These Days

This isn't going to be a deep, original lead sentence, but in the Information Age, one can find just about anything. Sites like Classmates, My Space, Tribe, and even God forsaken Friendster, (with it's slow load time and often broken search features) can allow you to make contact with people you lost touch with in short order.

I was goofing around on Classmates (I received a notice that someone I served with in the Navy wanted me to post a photo) the other day when I decided to search for people I hadn't talked to in years. After three or four tries, I struck paydirt typing the name of an old friend who used to work with me at a record store. We lost touch after an argument close to ten years ago; unable to remember the details I do recall that I called her a "drama queen", which started the argument.

It turned out she registered with Classmates, as well. She had returned to college since then, earning a degree in English/English Lit. I wanted to read more, but I wasn't about to fork over thirty bucks to Classmates for the privilege. So, I headed over to Google, typed my old friend's name in the search engine, and clicked my mouse. Google returned only three results, but one of those results had an e-mail address associated with the name.

Now, I wanted to make sure that I had the right person, so I cut and pasted the e-mail address in the search bar. That search yielded not much more than the first search, but I had a good feeling I was on the right track. So, I took a deep breath and opened my e-mail program.

Although I was certain I had the right person, I figured it would be wise to play it safe, just in case. So I typed that I had done a search on Classmates and Google, and was writing to see how she was doing. I also placed the disclaimer that if I was somehow mistaken, to disregard the e-mail. Then, with one more deep breath, I clicked my mouse and sent the message. All I could do was wait.

So I was surprised this morning when I fired up my PC this morning to find that she did indeed return the e-mail. She cannot remember how we left things, which I guess is good because she did take it more seriously than I did. Maybe I'll leave that part out when we do meet up again.