I was joking with my mom yesterday about a commercial I’d just seen regarding a woman who said “I read an article… well I read the majority of an article online…”.

Who knew I’d be re-living that moment today?

In this A.D.H.D. world of Twitter updates, 24-hour news cycles, updating-phone widgets and the like, sitting down and reading something in its entirety has become quite the venture.

I am TUH-O-TOTALLY guilty of skimming things, ‘getting the gist,’ and movin’ on up to bigger and better things. I once could read 7 different books in a week, and now find myself happy when I get through my RSS feed of Mashable articles (which, in case you didn’t know, run extremely short).

Still, my ‘read the majority’ joke didn’t kick into reality til today, when I sent over this quick article from Gawker called “How To Prepare For A Hurricane.” (NSFParents).

I quickly scanned the paragraph titles: Evacuate, Don’t Panic, Stock Up, Fight The Power, Batten Down the Hatches, Have Something to Do, Have a Party. 

All seemed well and the few lines I did read over mentioned ‘downloading movies from iTunes’ and playing cards. Great ideas! I quickly right clicked, typed out my family’s e-mail addresses, and a couple of close friends too… and voila, SENT.

As I was just about to close the page, I noticed a word that didn’t seem to fit the article title. So I started to really read the article. 

OH MY GOD. I slapped my forehead and frantically clicked tabs to get back to Gmail. That article, had some additional ‘tid-bits’ that didn’t make it as wholesome as I’d initially thought.*

(*Should’ve known, after all, it IS Gawker. D’oh!*)

Now, here’s where Google Labs’ 30-second UNSEND button would come in handy… had I not spent more than a minute reading and gasping at the article that I’d just sent. 

Soooo… there it went. An article not fit to send to your mother, and I had effectively sent it to mine. And my father. And 5 other people.

READ BEFORE YOU SEND. 

Lesson Learned. 

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Have you done this before?