Oops I Read Her E-mail

What is protocol on “accidentally” reading someone else’s e-mail?  “Accidentally” being defined as: the person used your computer to sign into her e-mail account and when she finished she did not sign out, so when you go to open Safari her e-mail is right there 

for everyone to read.

It is not as if a password was hacked.

I was not an intentional action.

What if said person is your legal dependant?

Does that make it okay?

Let’s also just specify that I did NOT do this. 

The person I cohabitate with did.

A few days ago my morning alarm sounds and I reach over and turn it off.  David, hearing my alarm, walks into the room and sits in the chair next to my side of the bed. 

He is bursting with some news… “I opened my computer

and there it was.  It’s not like she closed out the program,

she didn’t log out!”

Frankly I am a little lost.  I need a few minutes to wake up

and hop into a conversation, and my alarm went off seconds ago.  “Whaaat?”

David continues, “I read Hannah’s e-mail.  Did you know

that she e-mails X (identity hidden) all the time?  And, our

little actress, is so boy crazy it isn’t funny!”

“You read her e-mail?”

“She told X that she is going to confront this boy at school

and profess her love to him.”

By this point I am over my grogginess, and I am in shock.  I forget the ethics of it all.

She is going to profess her love?   Awwww. Poor girl.

“And X?  X has been having her period for a few months, and hasn’t told her parents!  Hannah is giving

her advice!  And you can’t go telling X’s Mom about this.”

“What do you mean I can’t tell X’s Mom?”

David promised me that he would ask X’s Mom

and is keeping tabs on my conversations with her.

By the way, I have NOT let on to Hannah or X’s Mom,

I have kept my promise.

This is driving me crazy.  I am not going to be the Mom

that reads a diary, I want to be the Mom who talks openly

about things, as hard as that sounds.

Do I tell her?

Do I tell her that when she posts something on facebook

I see it (since we are friends)?

Some things I think she’ll have to learn on her own.