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Last Updated: Oct 16th, 2008 - 13:33:17 |
During a typical day I receive around 70 unique spam messages in my inbox. The average Internet user may chafe at wading through this daily pool of unsolicited correspondence, but I take the attention as a compliment.
Maybe it's just my sick sense of wanting to be included, but there's something disheartening about possibly being left out of even the most poorly executed marketing campaigns. Like Navin Johnson in The Jerk - who, upon finding his name for the first time in the phonebook, declares "I'm finally somebody!" - receiving spam somehow validates my existence. I can sleep at night knowing that some ingenious third-world entrepreneur is putting together a Viagra advertisement right now - and I'm on his mailing list.
In my book, spammers are the most helpful strangers I've never met. Few of my friends care as much about my love life as does Irving Tatum, who sends me a message at least once a week reminding me of the "older babes" who are waiting for me to contact them. There is also Millicent McGowan who sends me information about how to make a million dollars a week, and Norberto Bonner who sends me daily stock tips that I can only assume are straight from the smoky back rooms of Wall Street. I can only assume that these folks are unequivocally working to further my interests.
Except for Boby B.
Boby contacted me in late July and, with only a limited command of the English language, informed me that my life was going to end soon, but that he could help me. It turns out, if Boby is to be believed, that one of my friends hired him to kill me. Boby's "boys" had already found out all about me and were just waiting for his word to act. Luckily, Boby was willing to give me two days to come up with $20,000, at which point he would tell me which of my friends had hired him, so that I could then take legal action.
I have been waiting for over a month now - patient and fearful - repeatedly checking my inbox for signs of a familiar spammer, a suitcase of cash ready to go at a moment's notice. Spam may validate my existence, but whoever hired Boby has made me think that next time I should just hit delete.
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