A Recipe for Spam

By Debbie Farmer

But, to me, the truly amazing thing about the Internet is the quality of junk mail you now can receive. I tell you, it’s enough to make all the credit card offers and usual collections of bills that come through the regular U.S. mail seem, well, boring.

Don’t get me wrong. Normally, I’m not the sort of person who goes around looking for exciting junk mail (known, of course, as spam in computer lingo). It’s just not one of my interests. So, for years, I was deleting it from my e-mail inbox without really reading it.

Then, one day, out of spite and desperation, I made a terrible mistake: I replied to one with “take-me-off-your-list!!!!!” Little did I know that these five little words would open a floodgate of Internet junk mail the likes of which no human has ever before seen.

Now you would think that someone who used to wear bell-bottoms and hang out at Rolling Stones concerts wouldn’t be so naA[macron]ve. You would think. However, let me just say that replying to spam belongs second on the Really Bad Idea List, right under gauchos and above home perms.

You see, by the nature of replying, I have just proven that I am, indeed, a live person. Possibly even one who reads. Which is, at least as far as spam is concerned, a very, very big mistake.

Now, suddenly all sorts of people need my help. Take, for instance, a certain Mrs. Jumai Afsatu Abachua, the wife of a former head of a foreign state, who is under house arrest and needs me to help her collect her deceased husband’s funds and deposit them, interestingly enough, into my account for safe keeping.

On top of that, there are senators, ambassadors and even princes who are sitting by their computers at this very minute desperately waiting for my legal advice.

But, usually, more people are concerned with my financial state than my knowledge of foreign politics. People send me all sorts of online business opportunities that will make me rich without having to do, well, anything at all. In fact, one particularly ambitious person claimed that my entire credit history could be erased just by replying to his e-mail.

To think that what’s taken me a lifetime to ruin can all be gone in less than three minutes. Obviously, I didn’t reply. I’m pretty sure that if I had, it wouldn’t have been my credit history that would have been erased, but my hard drive.

If that’s not enough, there are people who would like nothing better than to improve my health, usually through the use of some sort of rare and pricey natural herb. In fact, just the other day, I received an e-mail from a nice man named Bob who was concerned about my body toxins. Apparently, they’ve reached alarming levels, but lucky he had a special tea to remedy this.

In fact, the regular use of this special cleansing tea had many additional benefits. For instance, it would improve my overall digestion, strengthen my immunity system, help to prevent cancer, make my skin more flexible, clear my eyes, and, I think, even make me a better dancer. But I could be wrong about the last one.

But let’s be fair here. Sometimes, just when you least expect it, some truly useful spam comes through. Like the offer I received the other day for free spam protection.

Of course, this brings up all sorts of other issues. Like, for instance, would it really work? Who did it come from? Or, more importantly, is this just another cheap trick that would open the floodgates to even more junk e-mail?

I finally ended up hitting the delete key.

Truth be told, I miss the good old days when you could get rid of junk mail by tossing it into the garbage can without having to worry whether it’s multiplying or seeking revenge.

Topics: Spam, Spamming, E-mail, Anti-spam techniques, E-mail spam, Debbie Farmer