Spam worries me. Not the lunchmeat'ish stuff in the can, although truthfully,
if I allow myself to think about it, that pig parts product can keep me up at
night with questions like "Who thought this was a good idea?" and "Why
rectangular?" Not to mention, "Are there people who actually go to the website,
www.spam.com, and are they on anyone's terrorist watchlist?"
But that's a column for another day. The topic du jour is the kind of spam that
gushes into your email box every day and makes you feel like you need a shower
just for reading the subject lines. Good thing I'm not Catholic or I'd have to
say twenty hail Mary's for the perverted things my eyes have skimmed as I hit
the delete button.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not angry, frustrated, annoyed, irritated, gob-smacked
or sawed off about spam. That would just be a waste of good negative emotions.
Emotions I need to save up for idiot drivers and people who talk on their cell
phones during meditation class.
Nope, when it comes to spam, I'm just worried. Worried about the vast number of
people who have so much time on their hands they don't mind sending me random messages
about weight loss, Canadian drugs, replica watches, topless celebrities, and
friends who have sent me an e-greeting. The rest of us might opt to vacuum the
living room or call up our representatives to complain about them not
representing or even go to the bathroom if we ever had a spare second. Not so
spammers. They prefer to reach out across the miles to communicate with total
strangers about topics we're too embarrassed to even discuss with our doctors.
I'm the kind of person who wonders about the people sending my spam. Who exactly
is Reyes C. Lancaster, for example, and why does he think I'm "Disenchanted
with the size of my pen!s?" (Reyes' spelling, not mine). Is he a sad little man
who suffers from this affliction himself and has decided to dedicate his life
to helping others in need? Or is he a recently laid-off engineer who answered
an Internet ad that read "Make thousands from your home with our guaranteed
home business!" and is now wishing he hadn't invested his life's saving in that
weekend plastic surgery class?
And why can't Reyes be more like Belinda P Grady, who is also working hard on
behalf of the size-impaired, but amuses and engages me with her lyrical e-mails?
"Birds flapping beside the western continent like mustard seeds aglow. We held
hands until the grasshoppers broke bread and shook their wanton heads, sadly
loping home behind the lonesome train whistle. Please your women like they've
never been pleased before." Belinda's missives almost make me want to reply to
her with information on that BFA program in creative writing I've been thinking
about starting online.
Of course Reyes and Belinda and I are not in this spam relationship alone. Because
somewhere out there are people who really really believe they need and can get
online platinum credit cards with no limit, bored and lonely Russian women, and
penis cream ("Your penis looks years younger, are you doing something?" "Thanks
for noticing. It's my new penis cream! It was supposed to improve my power and
potency, but hey, at least I'm smooth as a baby's bottom!")
It is bad enough having a "slow child" as our chief executive. Thinking that the
world could be populated with individuals who fall for spam scams is cause for
great concern on my part. Is this what No Child Left Behind has gotten us? A
bunch of dingbats gullible enough to believe that a) a cream can "Increase your
penis size by 50%" (apparently even if they don't personally possess one), b)
that this would be a good thing, and c) that Reyes and Belinda aren't planning
on taking them to the cleaners, because R & B's jobs were outsourced to 12-year old boys in Pakistan and they have to
pay bills somehow.
If you're a spammer and you're reading this, I'd love to help you
redirect your
energy into something more productive. Maybe you could join the
Republican
presidential field. I hear they're looking for a few good men (and
perhaps a
woman, but only if she wears pearls and is willing to let her husband
tell her
what to do on foreign policy matters). And if you're one of those
people who
believes you are just being optimistic and hopeful when you open your
spam mail
thinking maybe someone's finally offering you the solution to all your
life's problems, simply wire me $50,000 to claim your Nigerian
lottery prize winnings! Otherwise, I'd worry.
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Quirkee Voices 
(0 vote)
