No, I don’t need credit debt consolidation at low, low rates.

Or a free entry to the Lowes BBQ free giveaway sweepstakes.

Summer, I don’t need any of that. Why are you doing this to me? I mean, shoot, girl, you’re giving me nightmares.

The “Other Summer” as I call her, began impersonating me about six years ago. She doesn’t know it’s me, exactly.

But she thought up some seemingly random email address probably while hyped on Monster drinks and oxycodone (and I know she does both, I’m not just being snitty) and decided to start using my email as her burner email. Meaning her throw-away email is MY legit actual email address.

A burner email is just what it sounds like: a made-up email you give out whenever you fill out an online form or give your email to anyone that you never, ever want to hear from again. Most people use something like “sgfhfhdnatywtuwgg@gmail.com”. 

But not Summer.

No, she had to pick me.

The problem was, the email she dreamed up is one I’ve used since 1999. My oldest “family and friends only” email. The one you had before you got assigned job email addresses, before college email addresses, before “yahoo” for god sake…it’s the OG email. 

I know this person’s name is Summer, too, because it’s showing up in the emails I receive and all the receipts I get for god-knows-what crazy thing she bought last night. She’s a wildly different Summer. 

I am not giving this up without a fight.

Dunkin Donuts has a special coupon for me today. And there is more debt consolidation.

Just how much debt does Other Summer have? I wonder.

The “Pain Care” clinic on 3rd Ave has emailed me a receipt for treatment, including that aforementioned opioid prescription. Yes, I got your home address on that, and a last name.  But is it your real address and name? I don’t know. Your email obviously isn’t real.

Sometimes I think this Summer is stupid. How do you not give your real home address to a doctor? Well, I guess if you’re into sketchy shit, you don’t. And this alter-Summer, this Upside-Down World Summer, she’s into sketchy.

This Summer is also really into coupons—all the coupons, for everything (Ulta Beauty, McDonalds, 7-11, on and on) because they litter my inbox almost every day. She also likes freebies of every sort and generally, she uses my email on whatever looks interesting because she doesn’t have to lift one finger to unsubscribe. She just never gets their emails at all. I get them. She uses me.

This is interesting, UberEats just emailed me confirmation of a delivery to “my” front door, with a photo of the delivery. I lean forward into my computer screen, hoping to see an address in the image. 

Gotcha. Except, this Summer got her Taco Bell delivered about 2,304 miles away from the “Other Summer.”

Hmm. When I get Uber Eats, I never get Taco Bell. I get Thai. I am an elitist Summer, apparently.

Taco Bell Summer and Pain Care Summer are different Summers.

This is about when I pour a glass of wine. This keeps getting more interesting.

There are now two Summers. Well, three if you count me.

And then a week later, a librarian in England, Claire, encourages “Summer” to keep reading and to get through the coursework…because “she can do it!” She also said, “give your mum, Amanda, my love,” and cc’s her.

I feel that this “Summer in England” is not really wanting to do any school, and has obviously given her mom’s school librarian friend her wrong (burner) email. Which I happen to be tracking. Because of All The Summers.

I now have Summer’s mom, Amanda’s, email address. And the librarian. And Pain Care. And the address from Uber Eats.

Keep buying and checking out things, Summers; the addresses are proliferating.

I slowly wonder who all these Summers are morphing into. I’d like to think I’m the lead dog, but the forecast is hazy. The Summers are creeping in.

I pause and think about how many people’s lives I want to get involved in to protect my email.

The Taco Bell Summer in Georgia has recently started packing my inbox with what seems like the job fair websites you’re mandated to register for when you’re unemployed. These emails keep urging me every morning to look up job offers, upload my resume, and show up for events. They’re super depressing.

I feel a little bad for Taco Bell Summer.

I don’t feel bad for Pain Clinic Summer. She started this all.

My opinion of England Summer is also generally low. I mean, you should read, girl. Don’t mess with your mom.

Now we are four.

How wide can the Summers spread?

There aren’t that many real people named Summer. U.S. websites suggest there are only 19,943 of us currently living here, compared to 1,561,474 Jennifers and 2.61 million Marys.

So that three are using my private email to buy stuff and sign up for junkmail is just…weird.

If there are almost 1.6 million Jennifers by contrast, I could imagine having twenty or forty-five constantly impersonating your email. But are they?

These Summers are something special. And not in a great way.

There’s really no solution to this.

Except, to tell you to be happy you’re not in a crossfire of Summers. And, if you were wise enough to have created a tricky-to-discern “catboogermouspad52@aol.com” type of email from 1999 and no one but you has used it in all this time, then you have my respect.

Keep that email. It’s golden.

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