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period either way, it is still in play. I am looking forward to a lot more "Happy Birthday" greetings.
• After all, what do you get a person who has had as many birthdays as I have had that would be original and surprising? Believe me, I have enough ties. Of course, cash is always in good taste.
• Throughout the years I have been known to pull a few surprises on the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage's birthday but nobody has been able to reciprocate.
• That is, until recently.
• It was the day of my birthday when suddenly I began receiving emails and phone calls and they all had one theme. Not one of them was wishing me happy birthday but all were concerned about an email they allegedly received from me.
• According to this email, I was in Manila, Philippines on some mission trip.
• Actually that was not quite unusual because several years ago I did go on such a trip and most of my friends knew it. Now, according to this friendly email being sent to my friends, I was back in the Philippines on another mission trip.
• According to this anonymous friend, I was stranded in the Philippines. I had been robbed, my passport had been confiscated, and I needed money to get out of the Philippines. No wonder I have been feeling tired lately!
• Of all the birthday presents a person might receive this one really beats the birthday cake. I would not have thought of this in 1 million years.
• My email account had been hacked into and all of my email contacts were sent what seemed to be an emergency email. Most of my friends were relieved to find out that I was not stranded in the Philippines.
• My Korean publisher actually was willing to put up money to rescue me from my situation. Two other people were trying to find out how to get money to bail me out.
• The thing that worries me along this line is of all of my friends only three were willing to bail me out financially. I must make a mental note of this and never get stranded in the Philippines.
• My birthday hacking became a little more than I at first thought.
• At first it was a little joke, ha ha ha, I am really not in the Philippines. A joke can only go so far. I thought it was the end of the joke, but boy, was I in for a wonderful birthday surprise.
• My entire email account had been compromised and a new email address was inserted so all of the response would go to another person. I finally found out how he changed my account, changed it back and changed my password.
• All of my emails for the past month, including important ones from my publisher and agent, were lost in the mysterious world of the Internet. Somewhere in that mystifying world, my emails are floating around not knowing whither to cometh or goeth.

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