When a dot makes all the difference in the world

Funny story: I coach youth soccer. I recently e-mailed the German-born trainer of my daughter’s travel team to let him know that our practice venue had changed from Speno Park in East Meadow to Mitchel Field in Uniondale so the squad could play under the lights. I received this perplexing reply:

“Hi Scott, Unfortunately, I have no clue what you are talking about. Most probably, you wanted to send this e-mail to someone else. Greetings from Germany, Tobias.”

Hmmm, I thought, maybe Tobi, as we call him, went on vacation and forgot to tell me. But that would have been so unlike him. He’s responsible to a fault.

I e-mailed him back: “Hey Tobi, No, I meant the e-mail for you,” and reiterated the change in practice location.

Tobi’s next e-mail was weirder, but it helped me figure out what had happened. It read, “Hi Scott, I really have started to enjoy this conversation, although I still have some doubts that I should be the recipient [of your e-mail]. I just googled a bit, and it seems you are playing soccer. I love soccer! And I found out that you are playing on Long Island. Wow! I’d really like to join you there. Maybe we can have some iced tea after training.

“From the satellite pictures,” the e-mail continued, “I can see that Speno is really small and probably has no lights. Looking at the Mitchel Athletic Complex, I can see lights, but no soccer fields. I guess you, as a local, should know better.”

At this point, I realized that I had e-mailed the wrong Tobi. But how? Answer: I had mistakenly inserted a dot in his e-mail address where there shouldn’t have been one, and suddenly I was e-mailing a Tobi who has the exact first and last names as our trainer, lives in Germany, loves soccer and, like Tobi in America, speaks perfect English. An odd case of mistaken Web identity.

Tobi in Germany jokingly offered to arrange Donau Stadium if ever we needed a practice site. He gave a hyperlink for the stadium, so with my curiosity piqued, I hit it.