For the Love of Email?

In my rather lengthy life, I have had a very close relationship with the good old US mail service. There was nothing better than getting an envelope, hand addressed and maybe with a cute sticker on the back. Who knew what that envelope might contain, an invitation to a wedding, a note from your aunt in Wisconsin or sometimes, even a love letter!

But despite my affection for snail-mail, I was more than ready to jump on the email band wagon. By using my computer I can drop a line to a friend on the other side of the country and hear back from her within the hour. And my fingers don’t get sore like when I use to write three page letters by hand.

However, like all things, there is a dark side to internet communication, and I’m sure you all know what it is. Junk mail!

The other day I received an email in my in-box with the subject line, ‘Get use to being BIG…’

I stopped right there. Can some one please tell me; in what possible way could that subject line be inviting?

I don’t ever remember getting ads in the regular mail asking if I wanted larger breasts, and the closest thing to pornography was the underwear section of the Wal-Mart circular. Yet, for some reason my in-box is inundated with this type of garbage.

Is there some profile of me sitting out there in cyberspace that describes me as an underdeveloped, overweight, male/female, in need of more debt, gullible enough to invest money in illegal overseas accounts and sexually perverted?

I also get a kick out of the ‘helpful’ emails I receive from friends and family, warning me about the dangers of chorine soaked baby carrots, lead in red lip sticks and those horrible poisonous spiders that lurk under toilet seats in public bathrooms waiting to sink their little fangs into my protruding… well, enough of that one, but you get the idea.

I shouldn’t be surprised. These are the same people who, in college, sat up till all hours of the night debating the reality of a dead rodent accidentally fried with a batch of chicken at a local restaurant, or the likelihood of chocolate covered bugs lurking among our favorite candy.

And who has the time to sit around, making this stuff up. I’m guessing it’s the same genius who created the dancing baby, or maybe the sicko who programs destructive computer viruses that look like greetings from long lost friends. Someone with way too much time on their hands.

And speaking of time, I’m afraid I gotta run. I just received an email about the dangers of seatbelts that absolutely have to read.

Till next week…