Sexy Beast

Yesterday was one of those days. I had to dash to a meeting immediately after a conference call (which meant I needed to wear grown-up clothes, make-up and — UGH! proper women’s shoes). On top of that, my daughter needed me to pick her up an hour early and then went to school without her phone — which meant that I would have no way to communicate with her if I was running late.

And to add some icing to my very busy cake: I suspected that my site had been hacked.

I subscribe to my own RSS feed so I can see how it looks in Feedblitz. Over the weekend, I started receiving emails addressed to “Sexy Beast”… from “Sexy Beast.” This had been going on for three days and it was finally starting to bug me.

So I took an hour off from what I was supposed to be doing yesterday to see what I could learn about viruses that affect RSS feeds and Feedblitz. (I could not find anything).

I searched on the term “Sexy Beast.” (I got a lot of hits on that, just nothing relevant).

I visited Sucuri and scanned the site for malware (there are none — knock on wood).

If I hadn’t needed to leave the house I probably would have spent the entire day looking for the source of my weird “Sexy Beast” emails, because I get a little bit obsessive when something’s not right. And these emails did not feel right.

My afternoon meeting ended just in time to get to the school at 4:00. My daughter climbed in the car, and since she did not have her phone, she decided to play with mine.

Remember that as a T-Mobile customer, I was locked out of iPhone ownership until about six months ago. And ever since I got one, my daughter’s favorite thing has been conversing with Siri in an effort to make her say something silly.

“Hello, Siri,” she said.

“Hello, Sexy Beast.”

Ohhhhhhhhh. I forgot that Megan had instructed Siri to call me that. This reminded me of my hacking problem and put me in a foul mood.

“Tell her to just call me Donna,” I said sharply.

“Just call me Donna,” Megan instructed Siri.

“You would like me to call you Donna Just Call Me Donna,” Siri replied.

“Nooooooo. Call me Donna,” Megan said.

“OK Donna Just Call Me Donna. I will call Donna,” Siri replied.

“No! Stop! Don’t Call! Just Stop!”

I made my daughter hand me the phone.

I dropped her off at home, ran some errands, cooked dinner and finally set about writing some notes on the conference call and meeting I had participated in hours before. I was still working when I received my nightly Feedblitz subscription.

This time, it was addressed to “Donna Just Call Me Donna.”

It dawned on me that I was only seeing the weird emails on my iPad and iPhone. It was a Siri thing, related to the iOS 7 update I had done over the weekend.

I feel better. And have decided I need to come up with a new handle for Siri to call me. Something affirmative, like “You Are a Goddess.”

Because who wouldn’t want to be addressed like that every night?