Touch me. Touch me like you didn't touch me last night.

     Yep, it’s September 18, 2006, which means that it’s time for The 9^th Annual Wish benjamin’s Mother A Happy Birthday…Day.

     My mother lives in Orlando, Florida, and I live in Urbana, Illinois. According to Google maps, we’re 1,065 miles apart. As such, we don’t see each other very often, perhaps once or twice a year. Add to that the fact that she becomes cross when her children give her presents and you’ll see why my options are pretty much limited to a phone call. Well, they used to be.
     You see, in my senior year of college, I started using The Interwebs to get people to wish my mother a happy birthday. That first year, about twelve people sent her an e-mail. The number has increased every year, and I hope that this year is no exception.
     I love my mama more than a whole stack of take-away curry and Chinese food and authentic Mexican food from El Charro. So show her some love on her…umm…39^th birthday, and tell her that her batshit son sent you.

     …

     Okay, tell her that her batshit son named benjamin sent you. Sorry, Matthew, Jason, and Nathan #2, but you know I speak the truth.

SHE IS:
Annet Stein
n8annet at hotmail dott com

                                                    Love to all of you,

 
                                                            benjamin sTone

PS – As a bonus, please see the original e-mail below, salvaged from a text-file dump of my old Pine account at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
PPS – Tell your friends. Even strangers are welcome to tell my mama how cool she is.
PPPS -- Yes, I was signing my name that way back in 1997, too. It was an interwebs error thing.

                                                                            
THE ORIGINAL E-MAIL FROM NINE YEARS AGO:

Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 20:41:54 -0500 (CDT)
From: <b-stone@students.uiuc.edu>
X-Sender: b-stone@ux9.cso.uiuc.edu 
To: XXXXXXXXX
Subject: Happy Birthday to my mom.
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.970917203716.3946A-100000@ux9.cso.uiuc.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Status: RO
X-Status:  

I KNOW EVERYONE HATES MASS-MAILINGS, but...

WISH HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOM, ANNET STEIN !!!!  You'll get a similar
message in a week, to do the same for my brother Matthew, but we'll deal with
that later.  My Mom's b-day is the 18 of Sept, don't worry if you're a day or
two late, just send e-mail birthday wishes to:

annetn8@XXXXXXXX.com

THANKS!!!!

benjamin sTone