Coffee Break

Every morning, I have spam for breakfast with my morning coffee. Now, I understand that I could use a spam filter - but that presents a little problem for me. See, as a freelance writer of web content, a lot of my work correspondence contains words that get filtered out by spam filters. After missing out on a couple of very well-paying job propositions because my filter did what it was supposed to do, I decided to just disable it and deal with the spam by deleting it as it hit the box.

That was actually working fine until my laptop decided that it can no longer delete my deleted emails. It simply tells me that there is not enough memory. I suspect it has something to do with the bad sector on my hard drive because it was an even worse problem BEFORE I ran scandisk to mark those sectors so the computer would stop trying to write to them.

On the other hand, I’ve made some interesting “friends” who show up in my Inbox every day - or even several times a day. This morning, I thought it might be kinda fun to share some of my most persistent Inbox spam buddies with you.

Michelle Andrews writes me several times a day to tell me that I can make “$97 an hour guaranteed! Easiest money you’ll ever make!” She wants me to know that there are a lot of scam sites out there trying to make money off gullible people like her and me, and to tell me about this great site she found where she made nearly $100 just for filling out three surveys! I just think it’s so nice of her to be concerned about a total stranger like me that I want to pour her a cup of coffee and dish her up a big plate of spam!

I also wonder if she’s a friend of Michael Vincent, who keeps writing to tell me that he’s found me a new job. I mean, how sweet is that? And then there’s Bill Ford who wants to lower my electricity bills to $0 and Shawn Casey who wants me to know that really, he MUST be insane to give away $497 web sites for FREE to the first 250 people who sign up!

Mr. Chen Guangyuan is a relative newcomer to my Inbox, but he’s made himself right at home with about a dozen mails in the last two days. He’s a bank president in China who has - well, had - a client by the name of Ghazi Mussa Hassam who left $21.5 million behind in an account -with no next of kin. Out of the goodness of his larcenous heart, he wants to pay me 30% of that to help him get it out of the country and deposit it in my bank. Now, I don’t know if he’s been listening to the news lately but honestly? I wouldn’t be planning on trying to wire transfer ANY amount of money to a U.S. bank right about now. Part of me really just wants to warn him that his $21.5 million is really a whole lot safer in a Chinese bank for the time being - maybe we can borrow it to help shore up OUR banks.

The F.B.I has taken to contacting me directly to let me know about huge sums of money being held in my name in various banks, and requesting my assistance in proving that these deposits to be released to my bank account are not related to terrorist activities or drug violations. In order to prove that I am not illegally moving funds out of Nigeria, I have to IMMEDIATELY request an FBI Identification Record and Diplomatic Immunity Seal of Transfer from the bank that they name. If they don’t hear from me, they intend to pursue criminal charges against me for facilitating illegal terrorist activities. Now, I KNOW that the FBI has been watching me for years (nope, no tin hats here!) but gosh, it’s nice that they’re so concerned about my possible implication in terrorist activity that they’re warning me ahead of time that I may be getting myself into trouble.

Of course, my Inbox does have an attrition rate. I’ve noticed some folks that I used to count on for amusement have stopped dropping in for coffee. I don’t get near as many offers to help me increase my size or hook up with the girl of my dreams as I used to. I put that down to the economy, honestly. People are more worried about their wallets than their willies at the moment. But the offers for cheap drugs and weight loss aids continue, along with folks promising to teach me how to clean up in a down stock market.

And very occasionally, someone just disappears entirely, never to be heard from again. I have to tell you that I’m really worried about Dr. Suzanne Gudakunst, a diet doctor that regularly appeared in my Inbox for months. I got dozens of letters from people who were afraid for her life - they wanted to know “who is this woman and why do doctors want to kill her?”  It’s been a few weeks since I’ve heard anything from her and I’m gettting worried. If anyone hears from her, could you let me know? I’ve got a cup of coffee and a plate of spam waiting for her.

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