Dining Alone--the exciting world of un-eviting

So far 323 people are confirmed for thanksgiving dinner at my house next week and 53 more are considering it. How did I get so lucky? I sent out a message not inviting them. Turns out today's busy people are highly motivated to respond to a non-invitation.

Here's the back story: during my recent ill-fated stint as communications director for the second most losing initiative in California (turns out only 25% of Californians think that "it's about time for Prop 89"), my overworked cable ISP Comcast decided to eat my web-based address book...twice. For some reason my hard-drive back-up address book was 2 or 3 years out of date; it drove me mad.

Fortunately, I had recently uploaded my entire address book of 596 names to evite--the online "free" invitation tool. The rub: evite would be happy to let me download any email personage to whom I had actually sent an invitation (and I had only sent them to like 50 people). So I concocted a quick invitation to thanksgiving dinner at my house and sent it out to EVERYONE I know (and many I don't know, who are these people? Why did I save their email addresses?) When you clicked inside, you found out that it was a non invitation.

The result: a greater response than any invitation or email of any kind I have ever sent out. People who haven't responded even to personal non-group emails of mine for years came out of the woodwork to RSVP, telling me they're bringing their new lover, arsonist step son's etc. The notations of the people who are coming is one of the funniest things I've read in years. And the responses don't stop.

If the link works, read the RSVPs, however you won't be able to RSVP yourself unless you were personally un-invited. Actually, what the hell, anyone who's reading this blog, I personally don't invite you to spend Thanksgiving at my house next week. I'm really looking forward to not seeing you! Please do me the courtesy of letting me know how many people you won't be bringing.

Sara