Me: “Hi, my name is Christin, and I am an obsessive e-mail checker.”

The majority of the Luther community, who seem to feel that SquirrelMail is their only access to the outside world: “Hi, Christin. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.”

Me: “Yeah, that’s what I hear. Can we continue this in, like, five minutes? I need to check … er … go use the restroom.”

It’s true. I really do obsessively check my e-mail. Thanks to Facebook, iTunes and my weekly Sephora Beauty Insider e-mail, I always have a reason to see what my inbox has collected over the past, oh, I don’t know, 45 minutes. Seriously, when I am gone for a weekend, a whole day, or let’s just be honest, for that one hour of psych class, I find myself thinking (hoping) that I got some really cool Facebook message from a secret boyfriend or more recently, that I got the job offer I’ve been waiting for.

It all started when I was a freshman. I think my “problem” developed mainly because for the first time in my life, I actually had people sending me e-mail. I’m talking real e-mail, like ones from far away friends who actually follow the composition of a normal letter and are longer than three lines.

Ever since that fateful day, I met my match in technology heaven. SquirrelMail and I have been inseparable. In fact, I even got a little sad when Luther switched over to Gmail. I really liked that squirrel. I thought it was kind of cute, you know, to think of a chubby little squirrel delivering thoughtful little messages to me.

Lately, though, I’ve become kind of sick of my e-mail. I cannot leave anything unread, so that means I have to look through the spam mail too. (Who knows? Maybe the Luther server doesn’t recognize David Beckham’s e-mail address. It could happen!)

Unfortunately, though, the spam mail has been nothing more than disappointing and honestly, really disgusting. When I checked my e-mail earlier today (OK, so it was 10 minutes ago), I decided to delete all the accumulated spam messages from one night of no e-mail.

Seriously, out of 32, at least 29 were about enlarged male members. What’s worse, is the way these e-mails are titled in the subject line. Talk about degrading, sick and stupid. I would share the one with you that I just read, but I can’t. All I will tell you is that it also made an incredibly offensive reference to the Iraq War. It’s way too inappropriate.

Who reads stuff like that? Seriously, what is the point of sending out useless e-mails like that? Can someone explain that to me?

What if we made spam mail useful? OK, so then it wouldn’t be spam mail anymore, but you get what I’m saying. Instead of learning how to increase your male anatomy while making fun of the Iraq War, why don’t we send out e-mails discussing how we can help our soldiers or the Iraqi people, not ourselves. It frustrates me intensely to see something as serious as the Iraq War being made fun of by some stupid sex joke spam mail. I don’t mean to be prude or complain, but seriously kids, why can’t we take some things seriously? Why does it always have to be funny?

Think about that next time you make a joke. Question if what you are about to say is really worth it, and for that matter, try not to offend others. I’m not asking you to stop laughing. Just be sensitive about it, OK? OK, deal. I’m out. I’ve gotta go check my e-mail!