'Matter of Laugh or Death,' a humor column

By Bill Dunn

Interesting observations on this thing we call life

(appearing each week in the Republican-American newspaper, Waterbury, CT)

UNWANTED EMAILS FROM ABOVE

The Society for the Prevention of Annoying Mail (S.P.A.M. for short) recently issued official guidelines to reduce the amount of unsolicited emails that people receive each day: 1.) don’t own a computer, and 2.) if you must own a computer, don’t EVER turn it on.

The society claims that if we follow these two important steps, we can reduce our volume of unwanted emails by upwards of 50-percent.

Personally I doubt it. The people who send me an avalanche of emails each day promising that they can provide cheap drugs, cheap women, can’t-miss investments, replica watches, and products that will miraculously improve my hair, teeth, spleen, and other strategic body parts will not stop bothering me simply because I unplug my computer and throw it off a cliff. No, if I did that, these persistent folks surely would drive to my house and slip notes under my front door with eye-catching words such as “V!agra,” “Ci@alis,” and, “Add 4 inches to your spleenis.”

(Email spammers misspell certain words on purpose to avoid software filtering programs. I wish I had thought of that in my 5th grade English class. “But Mrs. McGillicuddy, I spelled those words wrong on purpose because I plan to go into online marketing when I grow up—as soon as Al Gore invents the Internet 10 years from now.”)

Sometimes I receive computer chain letters with a heart-rending tale of a little girl dying, or the urgent news that Madeline Murray O’Hair is working hard to outlaw all religious broadcasting (which is a pretty impressive feat on her part since she’s been dead for many years). These chain letters always include the desperate plea to forward the message to everyone in my email address book.

By the way, an excellent website that debunks these hokey chain letters can be found at Hoaxbusters.ciac.org. I am desperately pleading with you to forward this website address to everyone in your email address book! A little girl may die if you don’t!

The other day I received an interesting chain letter. It contained a cute religious message, which is fine by me because I do a fair amount of religious writing myself. If you’d like to read some, visit my website at Boomertrek.com. And please, forward my website address to everyone in your email address book! A middle-age man’s free-lance career may die if you don’t!

Anyway, at the end of the cute religious message, in big letters it said, “Show Jesus how much you love Him by forwarding this to everyone in your address book! Please don’t turn your back on Our Lord!”

Hmm…does that mean if I do what I usually do with chain letter emails—click “delete” after scanning the first sentence—then I am actually turning my back on Our Lord? I wasn’t sure, so I said a quick prayer: “What should I do, Lord?”

Then Jesus’ words from Matthew’s gospel popped into my head: “You will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light—and my burden does not include a bunch of dopey email chain letters.” (OK, possibly that last part is not verbatim from Matthew’s gospel.)

So I clicked “delete” with a clean conscience. But the next day I received a bunch of unsolicited emails, each with the same subject line: “Why did you turn your back on Me?”

Uh oh. Could it be?

However, the emails turned out to be more offers for drugs that will work wonders on various strategic body parts. Hey, I believe in miracles, but some things are just impossible!

©2007