You know how cars can be equipped with an ignition interlock device that prevents the engine from being started if the driver is intoxicated? Can we get one of those thingies for the personal computer, Blackberry, or any other device people can use to send email? Because I’m pretty sure a Northwestern Law student could have used a little technological warning before she logged on to her email this weekend.

Over the weekend we received an email that was (I can only assume) intended for an officer on the Northwestern Student Bar Association. But it was accidentally sent out to the entire NU law school student body. Whoops.

These are the things that happen when you try to email people at 12:30 on Friday night/Saturday morning….

When we usually talk about Northwestern’s SBA, we’re talking about something ridiculous that the organization is up to. But this time the SBA just sent out a perfectly innocuous email to the student body:

The SBA executive board will hold office hours in the SBA office… on [Tuesdays and Thursdays]. Feel free to stop by with any questions or concerns. In a lot of cases it’s easier for us to have a face-to-face conversation with you than to go through a back and forth email exchange. (That said, you can also always drop us a line about anything at our individual email addresses or [redacted].)

It turns out that one lady wildcat wanted to do a little more than have a face-to-face chat:

Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2010 12:29 AM

To: [All Law Students] @LISTSERV.IT.NORTHWESTERN.EDU Hey [SBA Guy], So, I understand that the SBA office is the best place to have face-to-face convos. What about hand to weiner convos? teheheheheheheehehe Love, [Lady Who Likes Giving Hand Jobs]

Tehehe indeed. But hey, it could have been worse — remember the clueless law student at American University who forgot to close down her sexy gchats before leaving a public computer terminal?

I have a number of questions for this NU student (many of which I already know the answer to but can’t publish). From the email, it seems like the lady knows the SBA guy personally (she referred to him with a colloquial nickname). You wonder if they’ve had hand-to-wiener conversations before? And you wonder if, “but for” the mass email, future hand-to-wiener conversations would have taken place in the SBA’s offices?

But most of all, you wonder if the SBA guy has a girlfriend in the law school who never quite understood why her boyfriend was spending so much time on “SBA-related” activities. I hope, for his sake, that he hasn’t been having “conversations” out of turn.

In any event, while I’m sure this Northwestern lady is mortified, it’s actually a pretty low-impact way to learn a lesson about the “reply-all” button: DON’T EVER PRESS IT. Today, it’s a random email at 12:30 in the morning; tomorrow, when you have a job and a career, it could be so much worse.

But probably not as funny.

Earlier: The PC Police Ride Strong at Northwestern

Kids These Days: Or, Why You Should Always Sign Out of a Public Computer