Chain Letters

It always happens in a similar fashion: I'm having a relatively good day. Work was good, the kids are being good, all is well in my world. I sign into my email, browse through the never-ending list of forwards, and I notice a message that gets my interest. "I'm pregnant" "Save this child's life" "URGENT!" Whatever the title, it's guaranteed to be one that will make me read. I scroll through the endless list of names that this email has previously been forwarded to, and finally I reach the message.

It generally starts out with the story of Bob, who had a picture-perfect life, dated the pretty girl, had a great job, blah blah blah, until he got an email that he was instructed to forward. Bob didn't bother to follow the instructions, and the next day, Bob lost his job. He caught his girlfriend cheating on him with his best friend. Then his house burnt down, and while fleeing the fire, Bob was attacked by a rabid dog, robbed of his clothes, and finally, run over by a semi. Poor Bob.

The email then goes on to instruct me that if I do not forward this message to however many people within however many minutes/hours, the same tragic fate will come my way. What the hell? You mean to tell me that if I don't send this email to 98 people in the next 5 minutes that I'm going to meet my maker in some similarly horrific-yet-hilarious manner? I don't even have 98 contacts. Not to mention that I've spent the last 3 minutes griping about how ridiculous this is, so now I'm down to 2 minutes.

Obviously, I am not going to forward this ridiculousness to any of my friends. I'm tempted to call up the idiotic friend who sent it to me in the first place. Are people really so stupid that they will repeat the pattern? Oh, I'm sure after first reading the email they had the same reaction I did. Then the wheels started turning in their brains. What if it's true? What if by some chance I DID die for not sending this to my friends? Didn't I see on the news the other night that there's been a handful of mysterious deaths recently? Is this email the reason? I saw Final Destination. I don't want to be sending death my way unnecessarily. On and on it goes, the imagination spinning wildly out of control until they've convinced themselves that they simply MUST forward the email, just in case.

This reminds me of when I was a child, and my friends told me that if I stood in front of a mirror and said "Bloody Mary" three times, that the actual Bloody Mary from history would come and kill me (NOTE: Never, in all my years of studying history, did I ever read about this Bloody Mary person).

Needless to say, this anger-inducing email went straight to my trash. So, it's now been about an hour since reading the threatening email. I'm still kicking. However, if this happens to be my last post, you'll know that I was kidnapped, tortured, dismembered and disposed of by Bloody Mary. Que sera, sera.