There is a special circle in Hell reserved for senders of spam. Don’t you just love it when you’re waiting for an important email to come in and get alerted to a new communication only to check your inbox and find out someone is trying to get you to subscribe to The Journal of Secrets to Better Skunk Hunting?
My favorite pitch to hate is the one offering you the deal of the century on a lifetime supply of Viagra. Then there’s the countless dating scam variations on “My name is Bambi the Bimbo, I’m gorgeous, lonely and desperate for you and only you to come into my life and give it meaning” (for an ungodly membership fee to some supposedly elite service that “guarantees” quality companionship).
And don’t forget the too-good-to-believe-so-they-must-be-true recruitments swearing up and down that others have done it, so you too — yes, you — can earn up to eleventy million dollars a day from the comfort of your own home without even getting out your jammys.
Recently, I’ve come across one that isn’t just annoying. It’s dangerous. A foreigner pleads for your help — one time it was a desperate lady trying to, if memory serves, flee her country’s disastrous conditions. All she needs is to hide her financial resources from the evil government and, if you’ll let her put her life savings in your bank account, she’ll be ever so grateful.
Another time it was some guy seeking the safety of an American willing to shelter his money in his or her account. I responded a couple times by offering to turn those email requests over to the authorities, and gee, just like that they suddenly found someplace to turn for help other than me.
Hard as it is to believe, there have to be scads of dopes actually dumb enough to go for any old okey-doke, because the pitches just keep on coming. I can’t imagine, though, someone stupid enough to buy pharmaceuticals in bulk from a source they never heard of before.
Doubtless, be it Viagra or a miracle cure for migraines, all you’re gonna get is sugar pills. That and the headache of some unscrupulous s.o.b. out there now having your credit card number.
I truly feel sorry for the Poindexter shut-in who sits at his computer picking his nose and slobbering all over himself, just drooling at the prospect of meeting and living happily ever after with that one in a million, hot-as-a-sunburn chick who’s been waiting all her life for him to come along, take a bath and get a life. Or at least get out of the house.
I have no sympathy, however, for anyone lazy and shiftless enough to pay a buy-in fee so they can get rich by sitting around in front of the television munching Captain Crunch and doing whatever it is that somehow renders them more gainfully employed than those who bust their asterisks actually working for a living.
And, honestly, if you’re brainless enough to open your bank account to anyone but your spouse — and maybe not even then — you need to lose every dime in it.
It’s to the point where, you know how it says at the end of this column that I welcome reader responses? Well, I do, but not at this email address. For the simple reason that when I used to open that account, I had to wade through literally pages of spam before I could find a single message that meant anything.
You really wanna pat me on the back or cuss me out, write a letter and go buy stamp. If you enclose an SASE (stamped self-addressed envelope), I’ll get back to you.
To err is human. To really screw up something as simple as getting mail requires a computer and some obnoxious, computer-savvy predator. Like I said, there’s a special place for them reserved in a hot place way down below. Before they get there, though, I’d love to get my hands on a real good spam filter. Not one that merely redirects it to my junk file, but one that boomerangs, sending every last one of those moronic messages right back where it came from.
Dwight Hobbes no longer welcomes reader responses to dhobbes@spokesman-recorder.com. He prefers instead that readers write to P.O. Box 50357, Mpls., 55403.
