It's embarassing how bad my memory is

Got this letter at my work email address and it caused me no end of enjoyment. Figured it would be wrong not to share. My responses are in parenthesis.

Hi [Nemesis]
How are you doing today? (I am doing quite well, thank you.) I went on vacation trip to London and attend a program to support people living with HIV / AIDS, I am very sorry i did not tell you about it until now. (Um, you SHOULD be sorry. I mean, I would pass on the HIV/AIDS conference because so many of the library teens have already cause me to spend hours weeping over the fate of humanity, but rubbing your London trip in my face, I must say, is a bit ho-baggish of you.)

I really need your help because I am stranded in London, (oh dear!) you will not believe I forgot my bag in the taxi where my money, passport, documents and other valuable things were kept on my way back to the hotel I was staying. (You're right, I will not believe it.) I'm staying in a 5 star hotel, (Wow, when millions of people are dying from AIDS? Way to win my sympathy there.) so I too have a hotel bill of $ 1500 and you want to pay the bill. (Really? I do?) I tried to explain my situation, but threaten to bring the case to the police and it is not necessary at this time. (I can't begin to imagine why you wouldn't want to involve the police.) Please, I want to help with the sum of $ 2500 to settle my outstanding invoices from hotels, food and transport myself to myself (Transporting yourself to yourself? That's a bit sci-fi, I must say.) at the Embassy to retrieve a temporary travel home. I am sending you this email from the city Library (mmmm . . . libraries) and I will be there for a few hours while waiting for your e-mail,

I will really appreciate if I can send the money ASAP, I promise money back as soon as I return home.I will appreciate whatever you can afford to help me with,Kindly let me know if you can be of help? so that i can send you the details.Your reply will be greatly appreciated.

Merrilee

Now, this letter is a new sort of thing for me. The writer is operating not under the "hello, kind stranger, I heard you might be able to help me" mode but instead upon the basis that we are in fact friends and know each other well enough to be keeping each other up on our travel plans. So if her name does not sound familiar to me, maybe she/he is hoping that I'll be like, "Well, she certainly seems to know me. I must have forgotten about her! Gosh, I feel really bad about that. I'd better send her the money to assuage my guilt over having completely forgotten our relationship."

Am half-tempted to write and say, "Oh my gosh, that sounds terrible. Remember that one time when we went clubbing together in Ibiza and I left my purse in the bathroom by accident? This is totally like that! Except now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that you already owe me money from the time when we were at Costco with my membership card and they would only take American Express so I put that outdoor grill on my American Express and you said you would pay me back. So you go ahead and wire that money into my account and then we'll talk. Stay sweet and have a great summer!"

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