Thursday, January 19, 2012

An Open Letter to my Friends About Chain Letters

My e-mail is out of control. Of course, it doesn't help that I have multiple accounts and can't keep up with any of them. But I digress... I try really hard to read all my e-mails and make mental notes to respond to all (-ish) of them. [If you are waiting on a response from me, please know that I will make every effort to respond to you in the next six to eight years. Give or take a few.]

The situation just gets worse when my spam filter breaks down and I have to wade through mail about penis enlargement, free Viagra, senior singles in my area (Note to sender: This is not amusing.), weight loss pills, and some unknown South African uncle who has managed to side-step apartheid, genocide, man-eating lions, and poisonous snakes to become a billionaire before his death. My inbox can be a real ego boost.

My penis is totally the right size for a woman of my build.

If that's not annoying enough, I also get the mother of all annoyances in the mail world — chain mail. It was bad enough when you would receive the random chain letter in the mail back in the day. (Not that I'm old, as my spam folder seems to suggest.) Then e-mail came along and these crazy spammers could find you almost anywhere. You were safe as long as you didn't check your e-mail. Until... the chain TEXT rolled into town. That's right. I received my first chain text the other day. The scene in my house was pretty much like this:

Me: Oh! A text. Tralala. Let me check that. Someone probably sent me something that is crazy urgent and needs my immediate attention.
Still me: What the...? [insert primal scream]

This, my friends, is where I inform you that if you send me chain mail you are dead to me. I'm not talking about the e-mails and texts with funny pictures and videos. (Please keep sending those!) I'm talking about any correspondence that ends in "Jesus / Allah / Gandhi / Tom Cruise wants you to send this to ten people, including the one who sent it to you..." or "Bill Ackerd didn't forward this within three seconds and he died in a fire. Twice." Few things make me more insane. Like fly-into-an-irrational-rage-and-want-to-smash-things type of insane.

This will be me. And I don't care.

I realize that I've taunted at least ten of you into spamming me with chain letters. My retribution will be swift and terrible.

Fess up — does anyone here send chain mail? Am I the only one with an irrational hatred of it?

18 comments:

  1. I despise chain mail. I don't even like forwards. If the email has the FW: on it, I won't even open it. It goes straight to my trash, even if it is from family. I've sent many an email to friends and family pleading(read: threatening) them to cease these forwards to no avail. I understand and share your hatred of chain main.

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  2. I pretty much delete all forwards, unless they come from hubs (this is rare, and he doesn't send junk, just vital stuff) or one of you people (Robporn, Jacksonporn, or someecards). I'm too busy to read a hundred things a day.

    And also, PSA: for the love of all that is sparkly, please verify stuff on snopes before forwarding. There has never - nope, never - been a case of someone hiding under a car and slicing your ankles when you go to get in, or a cat suffocating a baby, etc. etc. etc. Do your homework and forward responsibly, ffs.

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  3. I've probably deleted four email accounts because of chain mail. My fucking cousins send it to me all the TIME. Along with all those invitations to their kids' birthday parties. Dude, I'd be going to a birthday party every weekend if I accepted, and they all live at least an hour away and who has time for that? (I have a lot of cousins).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. get back to work woman! i'm tapping the vein ovah heahhh!!!
      {must have more reckoner, must have more reckoner . . .}
      Did you not say every friday? It's bad enough I have to keep checking for Substance Clad in Shadows! Which BTW if fucking fantastic!!! I love love love nutty as a fruitcake bella. The writing is superb. But this about you now, not SCiS ; ) So get a postin'!!

      Delete
  4. I too DESPISE chain mail! I also check the facts on Snopes before I forward anything (and I only forward on rare occasions).

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  5. I hate those things! I always delete them. Even worse? I'd I do get one & read it but it has all that "forward to ten people or die" I'll delete all the stuff at the bottom @ send it out. That way it just becomes a funny email. :-$

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  6. Chain emails... fine I'll delete them but chain text messages really piss me off! It's worse when someone sends one in a group text and then you get random texts from friends of friends/family of friends that you don't even know! I would love nothing more than to maim those people :)

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  7. I LOATH chain mail. What is the point? Are people that paranoid? Does this mean you're going to delete the news article I sent you about my book signing? Bites nails....

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  8. I am old enough to remember actually writing these out longhand, putting stamps on them, and mailing them to my unsuspecting friends and family (who were probably responsible for starting them in the first place). I wish I still had some of those! I would totally mail them to TK...

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    Replies
    1. I am also old enough to remember actually writing out ten fucking letters (well, I never actually did it because I thought it was just a sneaky way the "cool" kids were trying to fuck with me).

      Delete
  9. God, I so agree TK! A few years ago (before I even *had* a texting plan on my phone)I had a "friend" who would constantly send me spam pictures, emails, jokes and etc. I told her point blank I would never talk to her again if she continued to send me these texts. Then she sent me a picture of her BF's penis... yeah, we stopped talking after that...

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  10. As soon as I realised its a chain letter I delete, simple as that, dont care who its from. I just refuse to send them on and I dont feel in the least bit guilty.

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  11. Chain text messages? Geez! I'm so glad I live in the UK and haven't yet become a victim of this.

    Oh, wait, have I just opened the floodgates? I hope not. I'd hate to unfriend any of you...

    CC x

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  12. I despise chain letters too. Really? I'm going to have 10 years bad luck because I didn't forward the cutesy message onto 10 other people? I don't think so!!!

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  13. HATE HATE HATE THEM....I can't even stand those ridiculous fb messages where they tell you to "send this to 10 amazing women you know bla bla bla" :barf: If I die young, unloved and in some sort of tragic way, it will be cause I'm a twat waffle, not because I didn't return a damned chain letter, message, text, tumblr post ect.

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  14. At the end of the day, I'm going to end up in some horrible situation because I'm an asshole who doesn't think before she opens her mouth, not because I didn't send a pink heart to ten women in my address book.

    btw, TK - I sent you an email. You have 24 hours to respond. Better get on that...

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  15. My SIL sends me junk all the time - email, phone and Facebook. I can't stand it. It is so annoying. All I can say is if I send a FWD to any of you it is because I really did think the item was funny and perfect for you to read and it will NEVER be a chain mail. Ugh

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