Steve, I've had it happen to me, only since I can see deleted messages, I finally figured out I'd typed it but hadn't posted it. (Doesn't work if you saw it posted, but...)

Nothing is ever truly deleted from Mudcat. If it's "deleted" it just doesn't. show up in the thread, and can be reinstated by a mod.
All messages have their own sequential numbers. If a message were truly and thoroughly disappeared, max would have to re-index the several million messages, and that ain't gonna happen.
You can go up to the names of posters in blue above, and if you hover your mouse over them, you can see their numbers. If you really wanted to, you could type in the message number of an older post, and add 1 to it, until you get to now. Deleted messages will just not show up.

And on topic - I have another friend named Joe who ends up in Facebook jail every once in a while. Maybe it's a "Joe" thing? I don't know why I haven't been thrown in, other than I mostly hate fighting.