Seriously I think I might have to give up the internet. Within 2 seconds of logging on it's "Hiiiya"! from my auntie. Every time.

It's getting to the point where I could snap at any minute and be extremely rude but then she will tell my mum and then my mum will be on my trail and it will all end up like a fucking Seinfeld episode.

The weird thing is even when I don't sign into MSN she knows somehow that I'm online and 'gets' me.

We had a conversation about heated curlers last night. Seriously, this has to stop.

Even worse than the constant interruptions and banal beyond belief conversations, there's the guilt that I am a bad person....

can't you somehow 'ban' her?

There was a dude I used to work with who did this. Really fucking annoying.

Also, my mom forwards me every e-mail joke that's sent to her.

Haha, my dad does that too.

Oh, and I know what it's like to have the annoying aunt. My aunt doesn't IM me every time she's online, THANK THE LORD, but she doesn't 'get' the idea of instant messaging. She signs every message off like an e-mail, "Love, Aunt ---" not realizing that I'm sitting RIGHT THERE reading it!

Well I am just shocked and appalled at your behavior, young man.

i have a bunch of friends that do that shit.....its the worst.

Well, at least you can spell now!

want me to wax her for ya?

oops, double post.

And I don't mean her legs and moustache.

This kind of lashing out isn't like you, Darrin. What are you rebelling against?

So, what's the latest on heated curlers? I thought their debut was postively electric but I hear their follow-up is not quite as good.

How do your relatives get your msn? My parents don't use msn and they don't know my e-mail address. My mom still shows me every cute cat picture she's sent so I'm glad they can't forward that to me.

Oh that reminds me, I was just about to send you this--



Precious, innit?

Now where did I put that George Carlin list...?

me too. i refuse to even open that shit anymore.

Mydad does it too. I tel him to not bother sending me jokes cause I don't read em. I have a number of relatives on AOL IM including my grandmother. I actually like it, cause I can talk to her briefly throughout the day and don't have to call.

Yep mine too. I have about 4 email addresses that I give out to people and rank by priority of the type of message I'm likely going to get from them (business/work, correspondance, jokes, spam).

I think the difference for me would be if a friend did that I'd just tell them to fucking quit it. For some reason, I couldn't tell my mom not to send them anymore.

My wife had to tell her family to stop sending her stuff - little by little it got to be racist, simple-minded bullshit/fear-mongering urban legends/precious Christian glurge. Really horrible stuff.

I did this with the wife's aunt in Indy. It didn't go over well. And of course, we've been to like 15 weddings/ funerals since.

You should explain that sometimes you leave yr computer on to "update" I do this to relatives and then occassionally will pop in, or answer an IM but I'll say, "oh I'm going to watch tv", or "gotta eat".

my mother apparently has IM, but my sister is a smart girl and has not told my mother what my screenname is.

my mother now calls or emails me to ask permission to forward me messages. (she writes emails a few times each week, but there's usually nothing wrong with them.) it got really bad for awhile and i wrote back saying that i was just deleting everything. and she got the point.

Me too. I love my email hierarchy. And I usually stop my joke sending friends by simply replying with a kind yet forceful request to stop sending me a bunch of horseshit that I will never open.

With MSN, you can only block her. (Tell her it was an accident, and you don't know how to undo it.)

With YahooIM and ICQ, you could appear invisible to her.