E-mail is a wonderful invention that has offered the world
instant communication, the ability to send and receive files with
the click of a button, and the most random, unsolicited
solicitations of products imaginable.
E-mail is a wonderful invention that has offered the world instant communication, the ability to send and receive files with the click of a button, and the most random, unsolicited solicitations of products imaginable.
“Don’t know where to buy pills?” an e-mail in my bulk mail folder asked yesterday. As a matter of fact, I do, and it sure isn’t from some guy named Mahmud Lockridge.
Another was titled, “Online medication? Easy!”
Yay! Some made-up person named Machteld Correa is way too excited that drugs are available online.
Tamra Conn (now that’s an appropriate last name) was offering Viagra, Cialis and other random enhancement drugs. Thanks Tammy, check back with me in a few years.
Clayton Childs – they must get these names from soap operas or romance novels – was willing to send me a stock market report. I probably just had to give him my credit card information and Social Security number. Or maybe a blank check would suffice.
As irritating as these messages are, at least they get magically shuttled to my bulk mail folder for easy disposal. It’s the forwarded “You’ve Gotta Read This!” messages that really get to me.
If I have to read another e-mail about Microsoft offering $10 for every time I forward that message, I’m going to break my delete key. Who believes this stuff, other than the friends and relatives that send these to me?
What really surprises me are the e-mails that people send because they are threatened with terrible luck if they don’t. “Forward this message to seven people in the next 10 minutes or your family will be cursed with bad luck for nine generations!”
That’s not true! Unless there are some cyber gypsies ready to give me the electronic evil eye for not forwarding a message, I refuse to believe this stuff.
Then there’s the, “This was sent by someone who cares about you…” message. No it wasn’t! If this person cared about me, they would leave me out of their psychotic cyber loop.
I don’t want to read about flesh-eating bananas or needles on theater seats or lethal rat urine, all of which are hoaxes that have made their way around e-mail boxes, according to a “hoaxbusters” site allegedly operated by the U.S. Department of Energy (that sounds like a hoax, come to think of it.)
E-mails have spread rumors about how shampoo causes cancer, sunscreen causes blindness and even how the Swiffer WetJet kills dogs. There are stories about spiders in toilets and roaches in tacos, normally under the heading “This is not a joke!”
I’ve gotten e-mails that call on everyone to do something in unison to show support for the troops (like forward e-mails?); I’ve gotten messages that weave a sad story about a sick kid whose random act of kindness in a time of need showed the world that there still is goodness and light (but not for YOU unless you forward the message to 16 of your closest friends).
I’ve been offered credit reports and mortgages. I’ve been sent dumb blonde jokes (I know, “Dumbs are not blonde”) and top 10 lists.
As I was typing this column I went back to check my just-trashed bulk mail folder to find that four more messages had poured in over the past 15 minutes.
Maryellen asked, “Is it a penny stock payday?” and Gracja Siebert won the award for least-intriguing subject line with the classic “PHpzARnkMA.” Hmm, I had better open that one quickly or else my grandchildren will surely be doomed!
Despite my displeasure with the trash associated with e-mail, I can’t imagine living without it. To that end, I’ve created an account where I hope I’ll hear from some of you. E-mail me at breencolumn-comments
@yahoo.com. As always, you can drop a hand-written note to me at the Free Lance and hopefully someone in the office will e-mail me so I can come pick it up.
Give me criticism; give me praise; offer suggestions for column topics; ask me a question; just say hello.
Please don’t offer me a mortgage or a penny stock or Viagra. I don’t need to read any more jokes or sob stories. I don’t want to know where to buy pills. When you’re done reading this column, pass the newspaper to 10 of your closest friends in the next six minutes or else your fingers will be ink-stained forever.
Adam Breen teaches journalism and yearbook at San Benito High School. He is former editor of the Free Lance.
