Okay, it has to be said. I do love google, I RELY on google, I am googling people nearly 58 times a day…and yet, isn’t there something just a little creepy about gmail? (Gmail being, of course, the google email service.)

Here’s what gets me. You’re reading along some hilarious message that somebody wrote to you about the meal they had in the Japanese restaurant the other day…and then your eye kind of drifts over to the right of the screen, and you can’t help but notice that all the ads are for other Japanese restaurants and little machines to make your own sushi. Stuff like that.

Huh! I thought when this first happened to me. What an amazing coincidence this is!

But then a friend was writing to me about her problems with her health insurance…and sure enough, over at the right, google had some dental plans to advertise! And when Ben wrote to me to tell me about some toys he was buying for Charlie, google was already two steps ahead of us, with toys to recommend.

Gives me the shivers.

Still, I was willing to go on this way–but today google just kind of overstepped the bounds of politeness, I think. Google has gone too far.

A friend emailed me some pictures of her baby–an adorable, blue-eyed angel of a baby, smiling at another baby while several moms sat in a circle and looked on, fondly.

And what were the ads that google thought were appropriate for this? Baby photographers, perhaps? Even diapers?

No.

The ads along the side were for: (1) tummy tuck surgery–”lose those extra pounds NOW” (2) a recipe for an Oreo cake, (3) and a website called Are You Ugly.com, where you can take a quiz “like an ugly celeb.”

Are they chuckling over at google? Or is this a computer’s idea of how to get back at human beings and their smiling offspring?