Death to SPAM!

Ok, it’s said that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled off was convincing people that he didn’t exist. If that’s true – and that’s a rant for another day – then the second best trick he came up with was convincing people that SPAM was anything other than the scourge of the modern age!

Forget chick flicks, forget advertising that sells to the lowest possible of all common denominators – forget those darn twist ties that they use to secure toys to their boxes – if you’re a parent you’ll understand that last one, if not, Fort Knox should be so well secured!

Forget all of that!

It is SPAM that is eroding the very fabric of reality around us, as we sit on our couches, glued to the mind curdling drivel that passes for entertainment on the boob tube – never got that really – if there were boobs on the tube, it would be far more interesting wouldn’t it?

I’m sure you could quantify SPAM into three truly disturbing categories. The first is ‘Idiot SPAM’. This is the garbage that you get in your inbox trying to sell you garbage you don’t want and clearly doesn’t work. It’s the guy who, if you’ll only provide him with your bank account number so that he can transfer his vast wealth into it temporarily, will make you a millionaire over night! I call it Idiot SPAM because only an idiot would fall for it. Seriously, if Prince Mugabi of whatever war torn African nation has the wherewithal to pick your individual email out of the ether to make his plea – believe me, he can get his money out of the country without your help. It’s called a bank – look into them!

The second is even worse than the first – it’s ‘Well Meaning SPAM’. Seriously, I don’t even know where to start with this one… You probably get them all the time – usually from people of the female persuasion. It’s meant to give you a lift, or put a smile on your face, or give you a sense of empowerment – unless you don’t immediately forward it to thirty of your closest friends – in which case, Lord help you, but bad things will happen! Like powerful medicine, there will be horrendous side effects! Extreme flatulence. The development of a second head. Pregnancy in men! The horrors go on, but I can not.

My better half – her words, not mine – gets these sorts of emails all the time and by default, so do I. And the problem is that you can’t filter the darn stuff! Oh you could filter them out (just between you and I, I have on one or two occasions) but the problem with that is that these people are ‘supposed’ to be your friends! They are ‘supposed’ to be people that care about you! If you filter them out with your SPAM filters, you might actually miss something that actually DOES have meaning!

And as ‘reasonable’ as your relatives / friends / whatever claim to be, it’s impossible to send them a polite message (and not just because doing polite is really hard when you’re that annoyed) asking them to stop sending you that sort of stuff. Why? Because it always hurts their feelings! Oh sure, they claim not to be wounded, until you open your Christmas Gift from Aunt Sadie and discover, not the family heirloom you were expecting, but a tin of… well, SPAM! And won’t that just teach you a life lesson, junior!

The third kind of SPAM is a meat product made from completely unidentifiable meat-like products, which if it’s ever passed your lips, puts you to far into the category of lost cause for me to even continue.

So what do you do? Got me. I’m venting – it’s what I do!

Have a good one – and stop sending me SPAM dammit!