The Volunteer, Part Two: Sudden Knowledge of Good and Evil

Hi Rhonda-

 Nice seeing you yesterday. You look great.

 As we discussed,  I am checking to see if Ben available to help with an event on Wed, June 24th. We are having a Donor Reception and Keli needs 3 or 4 volunteers to assist with set up, registration and various tasks. The event is from 6-8 and the address is 6600 C--------- Parkway which is is off of B------- Road. She needs him to help set up at 4. He'd be finished no later than 8:30. As I told him- he'd get community service hours for the drive to and from too.

We'd love to have him. Let me know asap.

Thanks, Rhonda.

;) Julie

Rhonda, by the way, is apparently "my" mom. By the time I got this email, though, I had forgotten all about the coookies experience.

I have to say, and I hope you don't think me cruel, but I chuckled often today thinking about you saying if that snake came near you it was gonna be thrown overboard...I knew you were serious and I could just picture you chucking that thing a mile...so funny but your threat worked!  

always fun, fun at the I-------..

hopefully I can let you know tomorrow about this.

 Hey Julie - I just looked at this...Ben is spending the night out tonight but I will pass on to his email and followup with him tomorrow.  Rach and I will be at UF tomorrow and wed...thanks for thinking of him...
Rhonda 

Like I said, I had totally forgotten about the coookies when I wrote this:

I am totally down to volunteer those days. See you there,
Ben 

And good ol' mom made me remember:

Good, so you know that they are reaallly counting on you and it would be awful if you didn't show up..all those beautiful children with such devastating home situations..they really need you to be there...since you didn't show up last time you need to really think through this.... are you really able to keep this comittment and handle this emotionally ...they've got you down so if you need to back out...let us know.  Why don't you call me at 2--------- to discuss.   

Again, I suppose people don't talk about these things outside of email, even with their progeny. But even given the fact that poor Ben's own mother doesn't know his email address or confirm affairs in real life, I actually felt pretty bad after reading this. Which briefly affected my conduct the next time I got such an email. Briefly.