8 Days - 100 Email Day

88. That's the closest we ever came.

For almost two years now, my good friend Wilkes and I have been emailing back and forth every day. Then, one day, we decided that it would be fun to see if we could hit 100 emails back and forth over the course of one work day. Gotta dream big, you know? With time running out, yesterday became 100 email day.

Like any good story of triumph over the odds, there are obstacles. For starters, we are in different time zones. Wilkes is one hour ahead of me, which means that when my day starts at 9:30am, it's already 10:30 for him. When he goes to lunch, that's another hour gone. And he's a banker, which means he leaves pretty early.

There is also an unspoken rule that each email has to have at least a little bit of substance. So, no one word answers like "yeah" and "hey". This is a conversation.

Oh. And we have jobs, so you never know when that might come into play.

Here are the details:

With 8 days left, my morning starts with this:

GOOOOOOOD MORNING. Welcome to the day of 100

#1

WB

Game on.

Things start out pretty steady, but by 11:15am, I'm getting a little nervous. We are at 16 emails, and I think Wilkes is at lunch. I've sent the last two emails in a row, so I don't feel like I can force the issue here.

Noon rolls around (1pm Eastern), and Wilkes comes out of the gate with two back to back responses to a couple questions that I asked earlier. Before I know it, we are at 20. Then 25. Picking up speed.

At 1:32pm, Wilkes sends the 50th email of the day. This was also about the time that I realized that I had not received any other emails that day.

By 3:30, we are at 64 emails. Starting to feel the crunch. Believe it or not, this is not that easy. I'm beginning to have my doubts that we can do this, and I'm fatigued. Wilkes is about to go home. I've got to head to another office for the rest of the day.

At 4:15, we are at 76 emails. It's 5:15 on the East Coast. One more good conversation topic ought to get us over the hump, but something that I was afraid would happen, happens. I've got to do some work. Moving candy, to be precise. I spend the next 15 minutes moving cases of candy across the building, and by the time I sit down to turn the computer on, its 4:40. I fire off one more email and wait. Bad news, Wilkes is nowhere to be found. Did he go home? Panic sets in. I decide to wait. At 5:30, I send a text.

"Is it over?"

"Yeah. Had to go into a meeting."

We didn't do it. Sending 100 emails back and forth might sound easy, but it is really not. It takes determination and a little bit of luck.

Sometimes you just have to settle for 77.