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Out of town

Penny flicked through her phone contacts deciding whom to call. She started with her friend Henry. The line rang a few times and then went to his voicemail. Henry's familiar voice came over the line, but his voicemail had changed from his usual message. It now said:
Hey, it's Henry. I'm out of the country for the next few days so I'm going to be hard to reach, but leave a message and I'll get back to you once I have service again. Have a good day!

 Huh, Penny had forgotten Henry was going out of town. Oh well. She shrugged and called her friend Fiona. The phone also rang to voicemail. Penny knew her generation wasn't much known for talking on the phone these days, but this was starting to get a bit weird.

She tried her friend Victor next and the same thing happened. Deciding that the phone calls were taking too long, Penny resorted to sending out a punch of text messages. She sent out texts asking if people were free to hang out this coming weekend to tons of friends.

Sarah wrote back:
Remember? I'm out of town this week.

 Scarlet texted back:
Sorry, hon, I'm on vacation. Didn't you know...

 David shot back:
Dude, no. Remember?

 Sam typed back:
Seriously? I'm not around this weekend.

 Okay, now Penny knew she must've missed something. How could everyone be out of town, but she didn't remember any of it? Penny knew she'd been a bit out of touch lately what with starting med school, but this felt like she was really out of it. She went back through her texts and couldn't find any mention from anybody about plans. She went through Facebook and couldn't find any messages or Facebook events. Finally, she cracked open her email and, at first, she still couldn't find anything.

Since she was already in her email, Penny decided it was time to clear out her spam folder. It had gotten so stress-fully large lately, so she'd be avoiding it. After joining a few too many listservs due to peer pressure, Penny had put stricter limits on her spam filter. Highlighting a page at a time, Penny began clearing out her folder. She knew she could click delete all, but she had a bit of morbid curiosity about the kinds of scams people sent her.

Even though she was absentmindedly clicking, suddenly a name grabbed her eye: Scarlet Simpson. This was one of her many friends who was out of town. Penny started looking more closely and she also saw Henry, Sarah, David, and Sam's names, as well as even more of their friends' names, scattered throughout her spam. Penny opened up the last email (that she hadn't deleted) of the chain called:
Impromptu Vacation to Iceland???

 Penny read through her fingers as she saw how Henry, two weeks ago, had found a great deal on some plane tickets and wanted to see if he could get anyone to come vacation on him at a bit of a spur of the moment adventure. Many people couldn't make it work, but Sarah, Scarlet, David, and Sam had all enthusiastically signed on and began making plans. They found a hostel room that would fit them all and arranged a rental car.

Penny sighed heavily and finally hit reply all:
Hey Guys,
Guess who finally opened up her spam folder...

(Prompt by Kimisha Cassidy)

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