I got a funny email the other day. It claimed that Barack Obama is a radical Muslim, was sworn into office not on the Bible but on the Quran, and that during the Pledge of Allegiance, he turns his back and “slouches.”
The guy isn’t perfect, but to accuse him of bad posture is just plain mean. What has happened to politics in this country? Looks like playground nerds have taken over.
I’m getting to the point that when I see the letters F W and D with a colon : after them, I can’t hit the delete button fast enough. I could sprain a finger.
But THIS IS TRUE. The other hoax emails may have proven wrong, but this one, well, this one is TRUE. That’s what it says, as if the all capital letters will convince you. “I didn’t believe it at first; I mean, that couldn’t be true! But there were those dang capital letters . . . ”
If big letters don’t do the job, then the phrase “I’m a lawyer” might do it.
I was leery of the claim that Bill Gates would send me a check for tens of thousands of dollars just for sending along forwards to people in my address book, but then I saw that the email was sent by a lawyer. “If anyone can afford it, Bill Gates is the man!” the lawyer chirps. “THIS IS TRUE.”
Oh for pity’s sake, capital letters and lawyers! Sign me up, counselor!
Call me crazy, but I have my doubts that Bill Gates gives a rat’s ass who I’m emailing.
Who makes this stuff up? I’m thinking it’s one guy. He’s been around since the mid 1990s, so he’s no spring chicken. He’s maybe 55-, 60-years-old, has greasy, gray, badly cut hair. He spends half his day driving around in a beat up El Camino soaking in pop culture and people-watching at the mall, and the other half in front of Court TV, American Justice and E!. Then he spends his evenings in front of his computer with a big bag of Funyuns, making up emails. He’s got a template that begins, “Send this to as many people as you can!” and ends with, “Don’t ignore this. It’s really important,” with a couple of “THIS IS TRUE”s thrown in the middle.
Based on his El Camino-ride research, he’s concluded that 1) human beings want most in the world to be rich – the filthy stinkin’ variety and the quicker the better. They want to have big checks mailed to them for doing nothing at all. 2) Their biggest fears are being kidnapped and getting a computer virus.
If you ever get a forward from me warning of a danger, it’ll be because I, myself, was kidnapped from a mall parking lot via a ruse where perfume was sprayed in my face but it was really ether; or one of my own children was kidnapped from a mall, was given a quick transvest-ectomy and whisked right out from under my nose; or I myself saw Chris Rock in an elevator in Vegas and spilled all my money when he talked to his German Shepherd.
You can return the favor by letting me know when you yourself get your check for $5,000 from Bill Gates.
I’m going to start collecting email addresses from these forwards I get. I’m going to wait until I have about 500 email addresses of people who have passed along these things and then I’m going to send them the Mother of all Email Warnings:
Subject: Fw: Fw: Fw: Fw: Fw: Fw: [Fw: Fw: THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT!!]
“Send this to everyone you know! This is really important!!!!! I’m a lawyer. And a medical doctor. And I’m a college professor at Carnagie Mellin. Yeah, that’s it. I’m a professor. And this information arrived this morning, from Microsoft and Norton. And Yahoo, Google and GE. Plus, Amber, an 8-year-old terminally ill girl wants you to forward this. It’s her last dying wish. Please send it to everybody you know. THIS IS TRUE!
You may receive an apparently harmless email with a Power Point presentation called “Life is beautiful.pps.” If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER AND CIRCUMSTANCES and delete it immediately. If you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying: “It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful.”
You will subsequently lose everything in your PC and the person who sent it to you will gain access to your name, your email, all of your passwords and the code to your garage door. You will lose your car keys and your reading glasses. You will lose your coupons and have to pay full price for things you buy at Bed Bath and Beyond. You will also get really bad cramps during your next period and your kids’ grades will slip a little bit, but only in the math and sciences. That won’t matter, though, because your children will be kidnapped! In a mall or a theme park via some crazy scheme in which the kidnapper is surprisingly clever and has come up with a fascinating way of kidnapping people.
This is a new virus that started to circulate on Saturday afternoon. We need to do everything possible to stop this virus. AOL has already confirmed it’s dangerousness and Snopes says this is true. Some guy that my cousin works with got it and it’s true. All antivirus software is not capable of destroying it. Neither are smashing your computer to bits with a big hammer, moving to a cabin in Oregon, or committing suicide.
The virus has been created by a hacker who calls himself “life owner’ and who claims to live inside the Internet (he says despite the crowds, it’s not bad in there. There are 7,000 Starbucks and the public schools got decent grades on the last Report Card.)
SEND A COPY OF THIS EMAIL TO ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS!
THIS! IS! TRUE!!!