The many lives of "Jessica Pollack"

There are a lot of Jessica Pollacks out in the world.  I know this because I get e-mails for them -- seemingly for all of them.  At first, years ago, I thought there was just one Jessica Pollack out there who either didn't know how to spell her last name or was purposely giving it out incorrectly.  I could tell from the e-mails that she was a newlywed stripper whose new husband had a lot of money, so I figured it was possible she didn't yet know how to spell her new name or didn't want people who knew her from her old life bothering her via e-mail.  Possible, right?  But then as Gmail took off and became the most popular e-mail service, I started getting more e-mails.  Many more.  Pretty soon, I figured out either this woman lived the most exciting, multi-city life ever with multiple identities, or there are Jessica Pollacks all over the country giving out the wrong e-mail address.  

I'm at a loss for how this happens.  I know that some of them spell their last name with two Os instead of an A, and some of them have one L instead of two, but I still don't get how all of them have such horrible handwriting that people are routinely misreading their last name.  More perplexing yet is how and why most of their friends insist on e-mailing me over and over despite my e-mailing them back to tell them they have the wrong address.

 

 My favorite exchange ever was with a friend of the Jessica Pollack I have labeled "Walking-Group Jessica."  The friend e-mailed out to the walking group about their meeting time and location, I e-mailed back to say she had the wrong address, and she responded by forwarding my e-mail to her back to my e-mail address again... so her Jessica could see my response... at my e-mail address... which makes perfect sense.  I told her again she had the wrong e-mail address.  So next she e-mailed the whole group (including me) to ask if they got her e-mail, since "Jessica" didn't, so she wanted to make sure there was nothing wrong with her own e-mail account.  I e-mailed her again, assuring her her e-mail account was just fine, but if she continued to send it to the wrong address, her Jessica would continue not to get it, and this was the wrong address.  That seemed to finally end that absurd e-mail back and forth, though whether or not she ever understood the problem I'll never know.

 

Another woman sent a medical referral e-mail to me three times.  I'd e-mail her telling her she had the wrong address, she'd thank me, and then she'd e-mail me the same e-mail again.  I gave up after the third identical back and forth.  Hopefully whichever Jessica that was got the medical treatment she needed.

 

A third e-mailer sent me report cards for the child of one of the Jessicas.  I told her she had the wrong address.  So she e-mailed me the report cards again.  And then she went above and beyond and sent me another e-mail to tell "Jessica" that she had sent the report cards to her e-mail again. Because if you can't contact someone via e-mail, the solution is clearly to tell them via e-mail that you're having trouble contacting them via e-mail.

 

One option here is that these e-mailers all lack common sense and logical thought.  But there's another option: I suppose they could be convinced it's a flaw in the time-space continuum rather than actually the wrong address.  I suppose they might think I hacked the account from another dimension and kept the e-mail from getting to their Jessica Pollack, and if they just resend it, this time it will make it through the wormhole unscathed and safely reach their friend.  Maybe this is true.  Maybe we're all the same person in different dimensions.  After all, quantum physics says that everything that can happen does, in some deminsion (or something like that).  If that's the case, I live quite a variety of lives....

 

I've added all the e-mails for other Jessicas to a folder over the years, and a scan of those e-mails gives a picture of many different Jessica Pollacks.  In addition to the stripper newlywed (who's not so newlywed anymore), there's another dancer Jessica, a Jewish mom Jessica, the Jessica who is in a walking group, a soccer mom Jessica (I get all the updates about her kid's soccer team -- they're never short on snacks, so that's good), a Jessica with a nice grandma (the grandma gets the award for logic and niceness in both e-mailing me back to thank me for informing her of the incorrect address and for understanding what a wrong e-mail address is, and as someone who doesn't have any grandparents anymore, I think her Jessica Pollack should really appreciate her grandma more and communicate with her grandma enough that the woman knows her e-mail address), a Jessica whose work colleagues ask for lotion samples (actually, it was more a polite-but-curt demand: "Please remind XXX that she has promised me the lotion samples"), a rich shopper who buys $500 outfits at upscale boutiques (you know the kind — bland, empty showrooms with one rack of boring clothes that could sell for a fraction of the price at Target and no one would ever know the difference) and then returns them a month later, a rich traveler Jessica who stays at fabulous resorts all over the world, and a Jessica who gets spa treatments and acupuncture and other weird treatments I can't even pronounce and suspect accomplish pretty much nothing.

 

Over the years, I've wondered which of these Jessicas are the same.  Did stripper newlywed Jessica become soccer mom Jessica, or perhaps she's now rich shopper and traveler Jessica?  Is the traveler also the one who gets exotic spa treatments?  Am I the only Jessica Pollack who's not rich?  And why is one of them responsible for getting her work colleague his promised lotion samples?  Why doesn't he ask the person himself?  Seems to me if he's getting free samples from someone, the least he could do would be to ask for them himself rather than making some Jessica Pollack ask for him.  After all, maybe she has a spa treatment to get to. Or a kid to pick up from school. Or a plane to catch.  Or a pole dancing class to get to. Or a soccer game to watch. Or a walking group to find (because I imagine the walking group coordinator never did get the right e-mail address there, so maybe there's some poor Jessica Pollack who's just been wandering around aimlessly for the past eight years looking for her walking group).

 

But then, as I was writing this, I got a text. It's a text of some pictures of some kids in a classroom.  I have no idea whom it's from, but I'm afraid to text back, lest I find out it's for a Jessica Pollack.  Because then that would mean we have the same phone number, too.  And then... well, then I think I'm in a Ray Bradbury book.