Even after reading the 2025 updated version, reading the original made me absolutely giddy at the end.
I can only imagine the euphoria of reconciling the inputs of “the things I know to be true of computers and email” and “my emails won’t send further than 500 miles”. What a great story - thanks for posting the original.
I collected a list of fun stories of this form a while ago!
- Car allergic to vanilla ice cream: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wkw/humour/carproblems.txt
- Can't log in when standing up: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p...
- OpenOffice won't print on Tuesdays: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161...
- The Wi-Fi only works when it's raining: https://predr.ag/blog/wifi-only-works-when-its-raining/
My personal list of stories of this kind includes:
- Car allergic to vanilla ice cream: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~wkw/humour/carproblems.txt
- Can't log in when standing up: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/3v52p...
- OpenOffice won't print on Tuesdays: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cupsys/+bug/255161...
- Wi-Fi only works when it's raining: https://predr.ag/blog/wifi-only-works-when-its-raining/