Mail Goggles put a lid on drinking and typing

It's 1:30 a.m., you just bumped into an old flame at your local water hole, emotions are running high ... and next thing you know, you're writing a sloppy e-mail that'll have you cringing in the morning. Sound familiar?

If so, the mad geniuses at Google Labs have just the widget for you: Mail Goggles, a little Gmail safeguard that could keep you from hitting "Send" when you really, truly shouldn't.

So here's how it works: You can set Mail Goggles to switch on at any given time and day, although by default it'll enable itself on Friday and Saturday nights—prime time for drunken drama.

Once activated, Mail Goggles will force you to jump through some hoops before sending any e-mail messages—specifically, you'll have 60 seconds to answer a series of five simple math problems (there's a difficulty setting that makes the questions progressively harder). If you've got the good sense to solve all five problems before time is up, you can hit "send"; otherwise, you'll have to wait 'till morning.

Not bad, but here's the thing: Even after a few too many Long Island Ice Teas, It's all too easy to dig into the Gmail settings menu and disable Mail Goggles, and woozy (and/or emotionally distraught) math majors will answer the elementary questions in a flash.

So here's my humble proposal to Google Labs: A mandatory Mail Goggles message queue. Any messages you try to send will be stored in a queue for later review, preferably in the cold light of day. And how about this: Once enabled, the Mail Googles queue can't be turned of, or maybe you'd need a secret password held by a trusted pal (who won't give it to you, no matter how much you beg).

Got any late-night e-mail horror stories for us? Do share.

Related:
New in Labs: Stop sending mail you later regret [Google Labs]