When you have a website and own your own domain name, your web hosting company, if they're worth their weight in salt, will allow you to set up a boundless number of email aliases. This is a very handy tool if you want to track who is sharing/selling your email address to spammers. For example, let's say my main email address is janedoe@mydomainname.com. If I do business with a business, say Acme Thread Company, I can set up acmethread@mydomainname.com to use in my dealings with them. If I start getting tons of spam through that email address, I know exactly where it came from. Then, not only can I call up Acme Thread and ream someone a new one, it's also very easy to stop the flow by disabling just that one alias. It's a great tool and very easy to set up. I have a million of them.

Today, I'm in the process of setting up a business account with a company that sells petticoats and other foundation garments. I don't expect to be ordering a whole lot from them, but it will be a nice service to offer my clients so they don't have to deal with the gestapo at the bridal shops. My Sleeping Beauty client needs a slip and hasn't been able to find anything that fits her properly. Hers will be my first order.

Anyhoo, I set up petticoatcompanyname@mydomainname.com as an email alias and sent off all of my contact information last night. I called as soon as I woke up this morning to check on the status of my account. Even though it's already lunch time on the east coast, no one had even bothered to look at their emails yet today. Sigh. The woman I spoke with, however, was very helpful. She found my email and said she would have my account up and running within 30 minutes. As we were wrapping up our phone call, she finally noticed my email address. Now, I realize not everyone is computer/internet savvy and the whole concept of email aliases is a foreign concept to many. However, I wasn't quite expecting the reaction I got. She was totally amazed that I had their company name in my email address and couldn't stop talking about it. I tried to quickly explain that I own the domain name and can have all the email addresses I want, but she wasn't hearing or understanding me. She just kept right on saying, "Wow! You have our name in your email address!" Considering their email address is @aol.com, her reaction wasn't a total surprise, but I still found it highly amusing. I felt like some sort of sorceress who, instead of turning people into newts, waved her magic wand and made email aliases appear out of thin air.

Wow. That was a short story made long for barely a chuckle. Sorry.