Robert Rotenberg is a criminal lawyer, former magazine publisher, and the author the bestselling novel Old City Hall, which was published in 2009. Rotenberg, whose new novel is called The Guilty Plea, will be guest editing The Afterword this week.

Like you I receive and (yes, mea culpa) send far too many e-mails. I’m in recovery, really trying hard to cut down. But the problem is the e-mails I get back. The same damn ones. Over and over again.

Here are the top ten worst of all time, in Letterman-like descending order: “wonderful,” “great,” “sure,” “thanks,” “can’t wait,” “yup,” “uh-huh,” “xxoo,” “xxxxxooooo,” and the mother-of-all-horrible e-mails: “k.”

I call it re-emailing and it drives me crazy. What is it about e-mail that makes people compulsively confirm the already confirmed just to re-confirm that it’s confirmed?I’ve taken to adding the following tag to many of my electronic missives: DO NOT E-MAIL ME BACK.

And more often than not the response is, you guessed it: “sure,” “yup,” “uh huh,” “xxoo” and that damn “k.”

E-mail reminds me of a short story I read in high school, Leiningen Verse the Ants, still vivid in my mind after all these years. Leiningen is a Brazilian plantation owner in the middle of the rain forest. Unlike his neighbouring farmers, when a swarm of killer ants arrive, he refuses to run. Over two days the ultra-persistent ant army surround him. They just never stop coming. Near the end of the story, in a last-ditch attempt to save the day, Leiningen dashes outside to turn on a pipe in the hopes of flooding out the invaders. Here’s what happens:

…not until he reached halfway did he feel ants under his clothes, and a few on his face. Mechanically, in his stride, he struck at them, scarcely conscious of their bites. He saw he was drawing appreciably nearer the weir–the distance grew less and less–sank to five hundred–three–two–one hundred yards.

Then he was at the weir and gripping the ant-hulled wheel. Hardly had he seized it when a horde of infuriated ants flowed over his hands, arms and shoulders. He started the wheel–before it turned once on its axis the swarm covered his face. Leiningen strained like a madman, his lips pressed tight; if he opened them to draw breath. . . .

Sound familiar?

The other day a good friend who’s a very busy lawyer and multi-tasker extraordinaire, confessed to me that she hasn’t been able to clear her in-box “for months.” Then I had lunch with someone who works on the night desk of a newspaper and he gets more than twenty-five hundred e-mails a day. Twenty-five hundred. The stress, oh, the stress.

So a modest proposal, which I hope will assist you to stem the tide. Send the following e-mail to a friend. Please be sure to use this exact wording.

You write the initial e-mail: “Hey there. Want to meet me seven tonight for dinner at Lahore Tikka House, the East-Indian restaurant on Gerrard Street mentioned in bestselling author Robert Rotenberg’s new, wonderful and great, legal thriller, The Guilty Plea?” (Note – as an exception to the re-email rule, the words wonderful and great are permitted in an initiating e-mail and any e-mail about any book by any author.)

When your friend writes back. “Yes. See you at seven,” resist with all your might to the urge to re-email back “k.”

Then get to the restaurant on time. Of course, I suggest you bring a good book, because your pal might not show up. Why? You didn’t re-confirm.

k.