Driven to obscenity by Web site

Any parent who's had a college-bound senior, and anyone who's had to arm wrestle a computer, knows the agony of online applications. Recently, my daughter Hannah brought home a flyer for the Coca-Cola Scholars program. It offered a Web site address and a scholarship deadline of Oct. 31.
With three days until the deadline, I shot downstairs and tried to access the site. It didn't work.
I tried again later when the deadline was just 24 hours away. Wanting to preview the site, then get Hannah right on it, I typed in the Web address and hit enter. A blank screen appeared.
Later in the evening, I tried again, waiting five minutes only to get the same blank screen. I needed a person to talk to, at very least an e-mail address. I found Coca Cola's corporate Web site and sought out help.
Do you want to knowwhat I really think?
Finally, I discovered a tab labeled, "Tell us what you think of our programs." I clicked it and got an electronic form to fill in. Finally -- an electronic human being. Uh? Anyway...
Name (I put in Hannah's), address, phone number, e-mail address. At the bottom of the form, it said, message. I wrote the following (duplicated here verbatim, for your consideration):
"I have been trying for several days to apply to the Coca Cola scholars program, but the site will not launch. I very much want to read about it, then apply. The paper I got from my high school counselor is just a flyer with the Web address and no further information except for the deadline of Oct. 31! I really don't want to miss the deadline. Can you help me? The site address I have is www.coca-colascholars.org. I have also tried to enter via this site and it didn't work either. Thank you very much."
I read it over, then clicked "send."
What do you meanby 'keep it clean?'
A tiny screen popped up. I read, "Oops -- you've entered a word we can't send ..." Huh, that's odd. I continued reading, "Please re-type your message, and keep it clean!" Keep it clean?!
I must have had a typo, so I spent the next 10 minutes looking for it. Which word, I wondered, was offensive? Nothing jumped out at me. Maybe "org"? I removed it. But the warning popped up again.
It couldn't be coca, could it? No, that's silly. After reading my message once more, I decided to take out "via" -- not for any particular reason, but just because it wasn't a common word for a teenager to use. I pushed "send" again. The warning screen popped up.
The next time, I spelled flyer with an "i" instead of a "y." Obviously, this solved nothing, and the screen scolded me once more.
Perhaps, "the site will not launch" was considered foul. Yes, I could see that. That could be misconstrued. I took it out.
"Oops -- you've entered a word we can't send... Please re-type your message, and keep it clean!"
Could the offending word be "deadline?" Might the soda censor think I was crafting some slasher message? I took out the word "dead" leaving the nonsensical statement, "I really don't want to miss the line." But it still didn't work.
Trying to readbetween the lines
At this point, I started looking across words, seeing if the last two letters of one word, combined with the first three letters of another word spelled something dirty. I came up with "Vebe," Ingfo," and "baddress" which, as far as I know, are not body parts and have nothing to do with sex. I abandoned that theory.
I'm usually not this obsessive, but being accused of writing an obscenity got to me, and so did the deadline. I didn't know if Hannah would be missing out on a chance for a $20 scholarship or a $20,000 one. I hated to give up, but it seemed inevitable.
I couldn't find the offensive word anywhere. I had spent 20 minutes trying to think "dirty" and had failed. I could see nothing vulgar or rude or profane in anything I had written.
In desperation, I erased my entire message. My fingers resignedly typed, "You suck." Then, as I rose from the computer, as an afterthought, I punched "enter."
That one went through.
murphy@vindy.com