Getaway Girls New Orleans...random nonsense & bits of fiction by Deirdre H. Gage

Yesterday morning at 7:53 a.m., I received an email from Ashley Madison.

The subject line read as follows:
Life is short. Have an affair.

Whoa, y’all. Buy a girl some Starbucks first. After I stopped laughing, I did a little research. For those of you who don’t know, Ashley Madison is a website for people who want to have affairs… but I guess, lack the time or the right contacts to make that happen on their own?

Is that a thing now? Are we so lazy and impersonal as a society we can’t even find people in real life to cheat with? Back when Grandma was a girl, they didn’t have websites. They had the milkman.

And who came up with the name? It sounds like a furniture store. Maybe that’s the point – so spouses don’t see those emails and suspect a steamy rendezvous; they just think you’re just buying a new ottoman.

There were so many things about this email that brought up questions I never knew I had, like how did I get on that email list? Usually when you get on the list for something, it’s through something you purchased or signed up for. So that really got me thinking. Was it the lime green personal organizer I recently purchased on Amazon that revealed an as yet-untapped proclivity for looser morals? Or maybe it was the array of summer sausage I recently purchased from Bavaria Smokehouse. (Feel free to insert your own meat joke here). The last thing I signed up for was the homeowner’s association, and I’m pretty sure if our ‘hood was a hotbed of swingers, the dues would be more than $50.

And what’s with the early roll call, Ash Mad? Is 7:53 am the prime time people make the choice to cheat? Like 11:15 is too close to lunch, and after 8pm people are too busy watching Mad Men? Me, I’d need some coffee before entertaining thoughts of adultery.

Then I opened the email. And laughed even more.

How can a company organize an entire site devoted to illicit relationships, yet not figure out how to send emails that actually work? Here’s what I saw: two broken links. That’s it. Can you imagine the letdown from someone who was actually thrilled to get this email, and possibly would have been swayed into a new lifestyle of cheap motel rooms and late night sexting? (Or whatever it is the kids, ahem, grownups, today are doing).

Heads up, Cheaters: Learn HTML.