Sealed with a...

I've been waiting for a newspaper editor to respond to my last email. She had contacted me about a possible writing opportunity, and I responded eagerly...two weeks ago. She has not written to me since then. So I examined the various reasons for this silence:

- The position isn't available yet.
- My writing sample failed to impress.
- My email was caught in the web.
- She was abducted by aliens and lost wi-fi service.

But in rereading my email to her, I'm beginning to think it was that very response that turned her away. It was friendly, polite, properly signed, and it contained contact information:
Or so I thought. But no, I actually sent this:
I emailed an emoticon. A depressing animated emoticon, no less! Now I AM depressed. You can't see the animation, but the face is actually at the apex of its frown in this image. It's like saying, "Don't call me - you'll regret it!" It would only be worse if I'd sent the enraged emoticon that shoots steam out of its ears:

More realistic would have been the guy begging...for a job.

Or "I'm so cool, you already have hired me":

So remember this, dear friends, when you write an email in HTML formatting, don't use any punctuation that could be misconstrued as a face. You might end up with one of these: