oh! I see. goodness.

I don't think you have any special obligation to be nice to her, honestly - be as blunt as possible in saying "The experts we are working with have been very specific in telling us to use x,y,z methods and if we start making up our own rules it will not help."

How about "I can't express how much I appreciate your help, and your working with our plan. It took a long time and a lot of tears and stress and back and forth to create it. We really need to not deviate from it so that we're all on the same page."

It's something of a recurring problem, i.e., people report in to tell me they did something not particularly helpful. One example is someone who tells me they drove around for 2 hours looking for her . . . in a place she hasn't been seen for a week.

I've written something up that says, in effect, what Teppy suggested, and mentioned that she really needed to read the FAQ as that would answer a lot of her questions before she emailed me again.

But I am seriously at my wits end with well meaning people who hear we've been trying to catch her for nearly 7 months and say, "Have you checked the shelters?"

Yeah, that's got to be annoying and painful. And painfully annoying! Unfortunately, I don't think there is any way to avoid those people while still continuing to interact with new people. (I'm sure ita can tell you about all the migraine tips she gets....)

I think one way to handle this for your own sake is to limit the amount you'll interact with people like this. Like, check incoming emails for actual sightings and stuff, but otherwise commit to only reading and replying to incoming emails for a set amount of time on set days. You could even set an auto-reply to say something like, "We monitor this email account for current sightings, but due to our busy lives and the volume of email, we cannot reply to individual email suggestions. Please consult the FAQ for our search plan and monitor the blog for active volunteer opportunities."

That's a great idea, flea. The other suggestion I was going to make was to not worry about people who waste their own time -- don't let them waste yours as well. Unless it's actively harming your progress.

Very nice, flea. And also agree with Jesse. But you said something about her making calls as if on your behalf? I can see where you'd want to nip that in bud pretty directly.

We walk a pretty fine line between keeping our information in front of people and annoying the hell out of these communities. So it's not a little annoying when someone takes it upon themselves to call police departments and or spam the listservs.

So, a woman has a sex toy in her checked bag and a TSA agent leaves a note saying "get your freak on girl" in the bag. I think that is fucking creepy.

Later on (in comments) the author said that

an agent in Cameroon pulled a tampon out of my bag and manhandled it for a while before smelling it and then asking me what it was. A male colleague had to explain, in French, and it was bad for all involved)."

Helpful tips: pandagon recommends putting sex toys in carryon and/or disguising the item in checked bags.

Reminds me of the "Louie" episode where he was trying to fly with "lube."