I get a lot of German email. I don't speak German and I've never lived in Germany, but my last name is very German, and this leads to a lot of spam and misdirected emails. For the first few years, I just deleted and ignored everything. Then, over time, I realized that there is a particular German Julia with my last name who keeps using my email address. First, she tried to create a Facebook account using my email address. Then she signed up for Pinterest using my email address. Pinterest, unlike Facebook, doesn't require you to confirm your email, so she just kept logging in using my email address and I kept getting notifications about it.
So one day, after the umpteenth notification, I used my email address to change her password, and then logged in and deleted her account. It was so satisfying! No more emails from Pinterest, and I figured I had taught German Julia a lesson. I felt slightly bad about it, but figured she would now realize that she really needed to use her own email address.
Then, a couple months later later, I got an email confirmation for a gynecologist appointment in Köln. First, I was impressed that women in Germany can make medical appointments online. Then I was intrigued that this Julia is apparently from the same city as my grandmother (maybe we're related?). And then I became frustrated that this other Julia really is too dumb to remember her own email address. I wrote to the doctor and explained they had the wrong email, but nothing changed. So after the third email asking me to confirm my appointment, I canceled it. Ha! Take that, German Julia! Now, I was sure, she would finally realize that it's my email address, and that I happen to be a person who is not at all above messing with her life.
But alas, today I received an email confirmation for an appointment at what appears to be a nice nail salon in Köln. This time I didn't even wait for a second or third notification. Appointment canceled! No shellac for you, German Julia!
And now I'm really, really hoping that she will use my email address to sign up for a dating site next! Because then I will really get to mess with her and it will be so fun.
