It’s not often that I find myself browsing the transcripts to Larry King Live. And by not that often, I mean not more than once a day. While on my lunch break this afternoon, I came across this transcript from June 18th when Larry interviewed Judith Sheindlin. You might know her better as Judge Judy.

Towards the end of the interview a caller asked her opinion on the current White House scandal regarding thousands of “missing” emails that had either been lost or deleted. Her answer and the ensuing discussion went as follows:

SHEINDLIN: And I always warn people that you can talk on the telephone and make a statement that you want to take back. And two seconds later, you say you know what I really didn’t mean what I said or let me qualify that statement for a moment.

But people are used to sending these e-mails and memorializing — I don’t see any reason that they have to memorialize every thought, you know, from the time they wake up in the morning until the time they go to sleep at night. And people have become attached to their computers.

KING: It rules them.

SHEINDLIN: It rules them. They can’t be away from it. And I don’t get it. I don’t — I’ve never turned a computer on.

KING: I like Jackie Mason’s line: “People send people’s e-mail and then call them to say, ‘Did you get my e-mail.”

SHEINDLIN: Did you get my e-mail.

KING: Why didn’t you call them in the first place? Whatever happened to the talking?

SHEINDLIN: I don’t know. I really don’t know the answer. All I can tell you is things — when people write things that they wish they could take back, they try to lose them.

This hit home with my relationship to email. I never had emailed before I entered college because the Internets were just a very small series of tubes located in Al Gore’s basement. Soon after moving into a dorm room, I bought my very first computer. It was a beautiful HP with all the bells and whistles for well over $2000. It came equipped with Windows 95 and a free trial of some newfangled program called AOL. I plugged that fucker in and signed right up – opening a world of emails and chat rooms that I’d never before conceived of.

In the years since, email has become sort of a crutch for me. I express my feelings over email rather than in person because it’s easier to get my thoughts down, and easier to hide from hurtful things other people say. It’s true, though, what Judge Judy said about not being able to take things back. When you’re arguing with someone on the phone or in person, you have an immediate opportunity to correct your words or a misconception. In email it’s much harder because it’s out there and you can’t un-send it once you’ve clicked that button.

My brother and I have this very type of email relationship. When we’ve done something to annoy the other we are quick to send out an angry little email, sometimes saying things we don’t mean. I’ve recently realized the danger in this and the disservice it does to me and our relationship. It deprives me of an opportunity to create understanding, to heal a wound and to get past the anger. Most recently, it has resulted in a large rift and the possibility that our relationship will never heal. He said things he can’t take back and I’ve seen the emails he’s written to others in my family where he’s crossed the line so egregiously that there is little he could do or say to convince me that he didn’t mean it or that he was sorry. You can’t say something in the heat of the battle and later pretend it didn’t mean anything. At the time, it must have or it would never have been said (or written). While these moments aren’t entirely avoidable outside of email either, they seem to be most prevalent when you’re sitting behind the monitor clicking away hateful things. Once you hit that send button, you can’t unsay them…and you can’t pretend you were misheard. Your words are on the screen, clear as day.

I work in an employment law office and it is never clearer than in our world that email is a powerful tool. People sometimes seem to have little sense when it comes to email communication. It’s as if they suddenly have a forum to send anything and everything in the false belief that their emails are free from prying eyes. Surprise, motherfuckers! They’re all being saved for lawsuits like ours where they’ll stack up so high you’ll slip a disc picking up the evidence against you. Forget about hitting that delete button because that picture of your wiener isn’t really going to disappear.

It really seems as if email has provided society with such a level of perceived anonimity that we feel free to do, say and share things that we wouldn’t face to face. It’s always a good thing to remember that people are watching and we’re not as anonymous or bulletproof as we believe. So before you hit that send button, think long and hard about whether you want the IT guy, your boss, HR, a team of high priced lawyers, the judge and a jury to know that you’re balls are saggier than Cisco Adler’s.