Spam filter/firewall thing-a-ma-jig

The firewall/spam filter at Michael's office (USAF base) is super sensitive to outside email addresses (such as yahoo, hotmail, anything without a ".mil" at the end, etc.), which makes sense since it's a military installation and all. But, folks, it's super annoying.

Michael works at his desk most of the day and rather than calling him to ask questions or to remind him of things, etc. I simply shoot him an email and he usually replies within just a few minutes (don't worry, I'm not interrupting him all day long - just a couple emails). Well, a while back he wasn't responding to more than half of my emails for over a week and come to find out he wasn't ever receiving them. I understand that this thing is strict and doesn't allow any emails to even get to the recipient if the subject or email address seems spammy. But, my subject lines were always normal things (ex. "Jacob's dr. appt", "Reminder: friends tonight") not spammy or explicit, etc. Needless to say, both of us were highly annoyed.

For a while after we discovered this, I would send each email twice and he'd usually get one of them, and I resorted to calling if it was actually important since I feared he would never receive the email anyway. Then I started using these funny little subject lines that have never been rejected in the many, many months since I started doing it.

Here's how I come up with the subject line:
* pick the first color that comes to mind
* pick an animal that most definitely would NOT be that color

Examples: purple tiger, blue cat, pink turtle, etc.

It works like a charm and it's fun! So, if you have trouble with your military (or DOD employee) spouse's email spam filter thing, feel free to copy my idea and see if your emails get thru!!