Gmail Intuition

"Darling, this will be the final message you ever get from me. I am e-mailing you from a submarine, trapped at the bottom of the Pacific, and I fear I am breathing my last. You have been the joy of my life, and I die happy, knowing you are safe and that I was loved."

The woman receiving such a message would also get to peruse ads for bathtub-toy submarines, submarine-themed T-shirts and Metallica songs for downloading, including "Trapped Under the Ice."

Then I wrote: "My son came home from camp completely pooped. His pants were muddy." This was paired with ads for incontinence aids, a bed-wetting alarm and a device that lets women pee standing up.

Here's my final one, addressed to Google:

"I am tired of having my correspondence combed through in order to sell me sheets, linens and bedspreads, toenail-fungus ointments and the like. It's a terrible invasion of privacy. When my friend Rachel complained of persistent diarrhea, gas and warts in private places, I think that should have remained between her and me. When my friend Patricia asked me for help in dispatching her husband with a baseball bat for the insurance money, she had a reasonable expectation of privacy, didn't she? Accordingly, I am going to write about all this and humiliate you."

By sending it to myself several times, in slightly different wording, I learned to my delight that the message will arrive in Gmail with links for mold eliminator, fungal creams, pharmaceuticals to control dog and cat diarrhea, baseball bats, softball equipment, linens at JCPenney and a product that claims it can cure "skin rashes, joint pain, fungus growing on the private parts of the body, itching skin" and "clouded thinking."

I was going to send it to Google. But then I learned that Google customer support doesn't use Gmail. Privacy concerns, I'm guessing.

Gene Weingarten's e-mail address is weingarten@washpost.com.

Chat with him online Tuesdays at noon at www.washingtonpost.com.