It's Only Polite

If an email tells me not to reply, you better believe I’m replying  


What exactly do you say to a non-functioning email address?  


That's the beauty of it.  I can say whatever I want!

So, if you've ever been on the internet, you've probably gotten an email or two from a service email address.  It's one of these automated things which emails you to let you know that your online order has shipped, or your dentist appointment is next week, or your lawn is due for feeding...you know...worthless crap like that.  If you've never been on the internet, you haven't gotten one of these emails, and I would wonder how you're reading a Blag, but that's not important right now. 

Most of these emails don't bother informing you that they come from a computer which doesn't bother to check incoming messages.  I can't imagine anybody replying to the lawn feeding email, saying "hey, thanks for the heads up, Lawn Food Company.  You really saved my grass's bacon."  Any normal person would look at this email and either add lawn food to their shopping list, or tell themselves to remember to feed the lawn before promptly forgetting to ever feed the lawn and sentence themselves to another summer of weeds in the front yard. 

What bugs me is when the email subject, or worse, the sender field, tells you in giant all-capital letters, "DO NOT REPLY."  Such was the case for a recent online purchase I made.  Their automated system sent me no fewer than five emails informing me that my order was received, my payment was authorized, my payment has been made, my order has been shipped, and they created an invoice for me.  All of this for 10 bucks worth of laser pointers.  The sender for these emails was "DO NOT REPLY."  Not the company's name, or "Email Notifier," or anything...their name was "DO NOT REPLY." 

I replied. 

All I said was "Thank you," but I made a very concerted effort to reply.  I thought it was the polite thing to do.  I keep waiting for a court order or something to get me to stop harassing the company, or for my email to be suspended due to abuse since I very clearly replied to an email that told me not to reply, but I've suffered no repercussions thus far.  The email didn't even bounce or anything.  I just haven't gotten a response.  It would be nice of somebody at "DO NOT REPLY" to send a "You're welcome."  It wouldn't kill them.