Spam I Am

FYI: I am not checking my regular e-mail anymore, just my spam file.

Here’s why: regular e-mail = bad news; spam=good news

There is never anything good in my regular e-mail just resume and article rejections, would-you-do-this-for-me’s, and when-can-we-expect-payment notices. My spam folder is a wonderful little world full of cheerful stuff and people trying to give me money and improve my life.

Sadly though I must have passed over some demographic line because I no longer get the dozens of Viagra and penis enlargement offers that I used to receive. I guess they think I am beyond all that now.

Here is a sampling from my spam of the last few days:

• Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI, has been in touch. It seems he is in Nigeria now. He doesn’t say why. He wants to send me an ATM card with $800,000 on it that I can use any way I choose. He cautions me to be careful because there are a lot of phony FBI people out there who claim to be investigating e-mail scams. He also suggests that I ignore any notices that my credit card or ATM is being abused because the FBI is already on the case.
• The United Nations has contacted me and it has been agreed that all persons who have been scammed by international e-mail plots will be compensated. My share is $500,000.
• I have won the UK National Lottery 3 times in the last 3 days. This by someone who has never even won the table center piece at a wedding.
• By my account I am the sole survivor and beneficiary of at least 20 Nigerians who have died in the past few days. That’s a side of the family I guess my Norwegian/Irish relatives lost touch with after the great out of Africa migration 100,000 years ago.
• I received many diet offers including one that promised I would lose 9 pounds in 11 days. I am waiting for a better offer, like 20 pounds in a day. One thing the Nigerians have learned, if you are going to make false promises, make big false promises.
• Another Nigerian gentleman has stuffed a box with $1,500,000 and will ship it to me immediately. He says that he will label the box as “old clothes” to fool the customs people. I don’t think that will work. Who will believe that Africans are exporting old clothes to needy Americans?
• Everybody wants to put me and my computer to work making money at home. To hell with that. With all of this money pouring in from Africa, I’m all set.
• By the weirdest of coincidences, three widows of wealthy men who died in U.S. raids on terrorists, all of whom are dying of breast cancer, want to give me sums of money ranging from $8 million to $12 million. Hey, I guess it’s no more of a long shot than winning the lottery 3 times in 3 days.
• By my count, I have 12 laptops and 15 Palm Pilots waiting for me to claim free for nothing.
• My favorite name of a Nigerian scam artist: Reverend Earnest Oh.

So, this is the world I will be living in until further notice. If you want to reach me, make me an offer that is too good to be true.