I’m starting to hate my e-mail. Oh, e-mail used to be pleasant.
I could e-mail friends day or night
– whenever I had a moment.
I’m starting to hate my e-mail. Oh, e-mail used to be pleasant. I could e-mail friends day or night – whenever I had a moment. I even sort of enjoyed those stupid chain mails. But lately it seems that every time I open my inbox, spam pops out at me.
Spammers always want me to buy something. They always want me to enlarge something – usually things which I don’t possess and, therefore, can’t enlarge. Or they want me to lose weight – which I could do, not that it’s their business.
Then there are the septic tank ads. I don’t have a septic tank. Truth is, I would not recognize a septic tank if I fell over it in broad daylight while walking down Monterey Street. But at least three times a day, I am warned about septic tank evils. I’m tempted to open one, just to see if it’s some strange religious cult that is convinced that the devil resides in the septic tanks of Gilroy.
Recently, I got on a porn list. How that happened, I don’t know. But it took me a while to find out that they were advertising porn. No, I’m not stupid. The e-mails were in German and didn’t have pictures. I don’t speak German. So it took a while before I realized that all the nice German people e-mailing me weren’t looking for American pen pals. They were looking for American porn viewers.
Well, that was a shock.
And now I can’t get rid of them. You see, when I thought the e-mails were innocent, I kept opening them and helpfully replying that I was so very sorry, but my last name was actually my married name, which I reluctantly took because it was easier to spell and pronounce than my maiden name, and that I didn’t speak German, unless you count my fluency when ordering hot dogs at Wienershnitzel®.
And all that told them was that they had a real, live idiot who kept answering their e-mails advertising porn. And how do I know it’s porn? Well, the very last e-mail I opened actually contained one word in English – the word “porn.” Even I, the Queen of E-mail Idiots, could figure out that those people weren’t just some misguided German exchange students hunting for a Sunday school teacher.
And now they haunt me day and night. They’ve filled my inbox. They’re even worse than the septic tank guy. And they’re 10 times worse than the too-helpful diet people. Or the people who want me to refill my inkjet cartridges for “much less money!”
The porn people are even worse than the people who want to sell me art. I keep getting e-mails from Picasso and Van Gogh. I mean, I don’t know a darn thing about art – but I do know those guys are dead. Heaven must have a great ISP, though – because they keep e-mailing me and asking me to buy their “very special prints, made just for me, Lorna Sonfrag.” I’m touched, really.
But the real capper came yesterday. The Bounty paper towel company e-mailed me. And when I opened the e-mail, it had the words to their theme song proudly displayed – “the quicker picker-upper, Bounty!” I can’t get that song out of my head. It’s driving me insane.
So I’m thinking of sending Bounty’s e-mail to the German porn people. They deserve to suffer as I have. It’s either that, or they are going to start being warned of the religious group fighting evil in their septic tanks. It’s the least I can do to fight spam.
Laurie Sontag is a Gilroy writer and mom who wishes parenthood had come with instructions. Her column is syndicated. You can reach Laurie at la****@la**********.com.
