A gmail message

I have relatively rare bursts of productivity and ambition, during which I do and plan things that I never follow up on. One of these things is signing up for listservs and news alerts that I never read once the drive wears out--which happens pretty soon after. Usually, I confine these alerts to a psuedo-junk email address, and occasionally glance through them, opening them only if the subject line hints at some sort of earth-shattering news. But, as a loyal subscriber to The Wall Street Journal, I thought it only fitting that the emails from this particular paper should be sent to my second-tier email address--not my sacrosanct personal one, but one step above my pseudo-junk email; the one in which I receive Columbia, job-related and other fairly serious emails.

But of course, my level of motivation when it comes to reading these is no higher than it is for reading my other pseudo-junk mail; with the result being that my second-tier Gmail inbox is now at 201 (I know, Caveboy, horror of horrors). Because, being the packrat that I am, I can't throw anything away; which in the virtual world translates into not deleting anything, at least until I've opened it.

So I was quite surprised--tickled, actually--when my Gmail account decided to take matters into its own hands and start designating my precious WSJ emails to the spam folder. I discovered two in the spam folder today. And I've no doubt more are headed that way. I believe the Gmail gods are sending me a message. Start reading your WSJ alerts, or we will throw them away.

Now I just wish someone would do the same thing to the weeks' worth of newspapers littering my apartment.