Garbage in - Garbage Out

My e-mail is sorted thusly...

One account for personal friends, one account for business correspondence, one account for e-commerce (i.e. things I buy online) and one for the assorted spam I receive on a regular basis. On any average day I may receive an e-mail or two in the first three in-baskets...however, I seem to be especially popular with the conveyors of cyber crap. They would like to offer me a new job in international money laundering or help me to enlarge my penis...or perhaps the penis in my life which is not actually MY penis so I'd feel kind of like I was over-stepping my bounds if I forwarded it to Donnie...

My time is valuable to me...

I hate spending even 5 minutes hitting a delete button when I could be...oh, I don't know...shaving my legs. The same goes for snail mail. Everyone seems to think I need a credit card...or that I need to know what's on sale, where and when because my entire life is based around consumerism. I buy one pair of panties from Victoria's Secret online and they inundate me with e-mails offering me so much lingerie they must think I don't need to wear actual clothing to work. I won't complain overly about all the catalogs they mail out since Donnie seems to enjoy those.

And while we're on the bitch-wagon...

How about those chain letters folks? It's amazing how those suckers have evolved. If you don't answer them you'll have bad luck forever, you could die if you send only 7 when your lucky number was 8...or even worse... But even THAT wasn't enough incentive for some people to hit that forward key and ruin the days of those unfortunate enough to be in their computerized address book. If self-preservation wouldn't work...all the stops must be pulled out. Guilt. If you don't at the very LEAST forward this back to me you are not my friend and you've never loved me, you rotten scum bag. For all those that didn't get a returned chain letter from me, the mere fact that I didn't knock on your door and beat you with my mouse pad should be proof enough that I consider you my friend. Here's an idea though...a suggestion if you will....try actually sending an e-mail some time. I'd really like to know what's going on in your life and not randomly receive a sparkly rose of friendship that should be eternally passed around because it's friendship week.

But I digress from the true intent of this blog...

The dreaded hoax e-mails. Luckily, I was born third in my family...which allowed me the luxury of sitting back and watching my older sister make an absolute gullible idiot of herself as my brother (the eldest) and his caustic wit flagellated her ego into shreds in front of mutual (and many) e-email recipients. She'd forward e-mails to family and friends with an "OMG...Can you believe this?! The poor guy!" with an attachment about some schmuck that supposedly woke up in a tub full of ice in a hotel room because kidney-bandits had robbed him. With a rah-rah attitude she championed the tumors with missing children of the world....err...switch that around a bit...who oddly enough believed with all their heart and poignantly dying souls that gathering electronic signals would singlehandedly make their lives and deaths more meaningful. And late at night, when her family slept peacefully unaware, she was earning money from Bill Gates....becoming a major benefactor of international charities...just...by...hitting...forward. Amazing, huh?

Not to my brother...

In fact, he found it somewhat irritating. But as an elder sibling...not to mention a brother...he felt it was not only just his pleasure..but his DUTY...to correct my sister...and in as public a forum as he could manage. This is where being third in the struggle for dominance and survival that some would call a family...came in handy. My older sister, my idol of feminine wiles, was being publicly humiliated and exposed as the village idiot, albeit a rather hot looking village idiot, by my razor-witted brother. Being the sister who was known by outsiders as "the smart one"...I enjoyed it immensely. But even more than that, I was enjoying even more the fact that it wasn't me that had forwarded that particular e-mail to our brother. You see...just like I arrange my in-boxes, I also have my address books arranged by groups such as family...or friends. I never forward crap like that on to my family... Hey! We're talking kidneys here...okay?

As my grandfather used to say..."If it sounds too good to be true, more than likely it's not." When in doubt, before hitting that forward key and either perpetuating an urban myth or irritating somebody like my big brother, open that browser and type http://www.snopes.com/