by Pierre Le Roux

Be careful what you wish for. This is something I learned the hard way this past weekend. After complaining on Friday that my life is boring, I had no idea how ominous that statement would turn out to be. You see I started off my weekend, on Friday afternoon, rather peaceful and completely oblivious as to what was to come. Then at roughly at 5pm my weekend took a turn for the worst. During the last 72 hours I had to endure an influx of hate mails, my blog was deleted, then almost hacked and to top it all off, hubby and I witnessed a friend have an car accident.

Entering the long weekend I was rather hopeful for a quiet, relaxing and revitalizing time. Arriving home, Friday afternoon I decided to unwind with some therapeutic gardening work. After the flowers were watered, the hedges trimmed and the weeds pulled, I decided to have a quick look at my blog and to check my e-mails (something I usually do twice a day). Opening my e-mail I was delighted to see that there were 28 e-mails downloading. With the first couple of mails showing in my inbox I was rather intrigued with their subject lines “Go to hell fag”, “Turn or burn”, “God hates queers”, “You’re sick and depraved”, “Filth of humanity”, “Hope you get Aids and die” and “If I find you I’ll kill you” to mention but just a few.

As the e-mails downloaded and I perused the subject lines I didn’t need to be a brain surgeon to realize they were hate mails, or so I thought. Normally I quite enjoy receiving them as they can be entertaining as hell (excuse the pun) to read. As I opened the first couple I was disappointed to discover that the content was exactly the same – Bible verses wrapped nicely together with angry words. My excitement at reading the insulting subject lines, hoping for some new and creative diatribe was soon replaced with boredom and disinterest. This was not hate mail, this was hate spam! “How utterly rude!” I thought. If you want to send someone hate mail the least you can do is make an effort and generate your own content! Well over 50 hate spams later, being irritated, I decided to respond via my blog. By midnight the hate spam eventually stopped totaling 135. An eerie silence followed.

Saturday morning I checked my e-mail and no hate spam. Relieved at the thought of whoever was behind hate spamming me lost interest, I continued with my day. At around 4pm, I was due for a heart stopping shock. Trying to access my blog, the words no blogger ever wants to see appeared on my plasma screen THE BLOG YOUR TRYING TO ACCESS HAVE BEEN DELETED! Sure that this must be a mistake I refreshed the page and in a different window tried opening it again. The same message appeared in both windows. My heart sank and it felt like someone punched me in my stomach. It felt like I was going to pass out, then I realized I wasn’t breathing. “Oh my God! 20 months worth of articles are gone! What the fuck am I going to do?! I can’t start over!!! What the fuck!!!!!!!!!!”

It’s not easy to operate a computer that just gave you horrific news while hyperventilating. In full crisis management and disaster mode I frantically clicked away while my mind was racing with questions that were hurting my brain. I eventually accessed my Google account and received another shocker. My account was suspended due to suspicious activity and my account had to be verified which I did. As I clicked on Blogger, with bated breath I was praying to be successfully diverted to my blog dashboard which would signal that my blog had been recovered. It was an agonizing 5 seconds and the relieve I felt when the webpage finally opened was indescribable. However, my relief soon turned to anger as I was asking myself, who or what almost destroyed my blog. Was this a glitch or was it the work of the hate spammers? I still don’t know.

With a disaster averted hubby and I decided to go out for a night on the town. I needed to forget about the hate spam, the cyber terrorist attack and just needed to go and have fun. We went to a relatively new gay bar not for from our house. The bar was fairly quiet for a Saturday night and I wasn’t expecting to necessarily bump into anyone I knew but I did. As we were heading to order drinks I saw an old friend sitting at a table. I had take a double take, as I haven’t seen him in just over a year and he gained a few pounds, but was looking good nonetheless. We did some catching up, some dancing and we were having a gay old time. Eventually we decided to go to another club nearby which hubby and I also have never been to. We left the bar, got into our cars and we followed our friend.

Almost at our destination, our evening of laughter abruptly came to halt. As our friend was turning into the parking area a woman driving at a fairly fast speed skipped a stop street and crashed into him. I was in total disbelieve watching this happen and it took me a few seconds to get over the shock. We immediately pulled to the side of the road and I rushed over to my friend’s car to check if he was ok. He was in shock but luckily not injured. His car wasn’t that fortunate and was a total right off. As the passengers from the other wrecked car freed themselves, police and emergency workers were arriving at the accident scene. We were there for what felt like hours. At roughly 1am the accident scene was finally cleared and we drove our friend home. On our way to his apartment there was silence in the car. We were all tired and shocked at how our evening had ended. The silence was eventually broken with our friend mumbling “And it’s my birthday today” and I responded with the only words that came to mind “Happy birthday, you sure have started you year with a bang!”

Yes, be careful what you wish for. This weekend I wanted some excitement and wasn’t prepared for what I got. Hate spam, almost losing my blog and a terrible car accident was not on my planned itinerary, but like the saying goes “all’s well that ends well”. The hate spam once more reminded that I am probably doing something right with my blog, having my blog deleted for 4 hours reminded me why having a backup is so all important, and finally my friend’s car accident reminded of how quick an accident can happen and the importance of friends in my life.

Till next time.