MONDAY, 04 AUGUST, 2003
Increasing the size of my vagina - THE COMMENTARY
By Joseph Planta
VANCOUVER – The amount of spam I receive at my e-mail address is horrendous. I get in the avenue of 100-150 e-mails a day. About 70% of those are legitimate e-mails: letters, newsletters I subscribe to, lists that I lurk on, and breaking news or wired press releases that I have sent to my address. The rest, like many of the ones you also receive, are nonsensical, veiled and often misleading e-mails, with cyphered subject lines, hyperbolic advertising, if not, inappropriate material.
So to those spammers out there, I send you this missive:
Dear Scum,
I have had my e-mail address for many years now. I have noticed the many e-mails you and your ilk have sent to me over the last number of years. I appreciate your efforts to get my attention, but I would have wished you were writing me on a column I had just written or on some subject of our mutual interest.
Without trying to sound harsh, I don't believe we share the same interests. For one, I am not a fiend who revels in child pornography, and I do wonder why, if you read this vaulted column over the last four years and previous 600 or so editions, you would send me invitations to view such idiocy. Though no prude, I also don't wish to accept your invitation to view, free of charge, websites bearing photographs of nude celebrities or video of nubile, young college females fornicating with farm animals. Though I am sure you have made great efforts to provide such access to myself, though, not illegally of course, I will not be ‘clicking' by anytime soon, because it would be in bad taste and a sincere waste of my precious time. I also do hope that your husband, who is away all the time (and whom you volunteered rather unnecessarily, is less than spectacular in the matrimonial bed), will come home soon to do his husbandly duty to you. It would be in a contravention of your sacred marriage vows were I to begin a relationship with you, over the internet that would lead into your entertaining myself, alone, in your empty house. Honestly, to think what your neighbours would say!
I do appreciate your concern about my sleeping problems, and the suggestion that I take an organic drug to cure my insomnia. It's very kind of you, but I find it slightly odd that you would be so concerned about the size of my penis as well. As such, do not expect me to purchase any of the all-natural pills you have so generously offered exclusively. Your concern for my personal well-being is not limited to the size of my genitalia. No, over the last while you have offered me information on drugs that are generic brands of some of the more expensive brand names. Though it's great you would offer to ship them directly to my home, I still like waiting in line at the pharmacy, alongside the other people who are seemingly so sick that they haven't got a computer with an e-mail address to which you could send them the same information you sent me.
You know thinking about those seemingly uncivilised people, who do not have computers in this ever increasing cyber-based world, I shudder to think that these unwashed masses have yet to experience the embarrassment I feel when I get your countless e-mails telling me that as I type, my computer could be prone to hackers who could see everything that I am doing. Shameful isn't it?
I hasten to point out though that at least a third of the e-mails you send me aren't addressed to me. Forgive me for taking a peek, but I am most envious that you would think someone other than myself, bearing a similar e-mail handle to that of my own, would want to burn DVDs on my own computer, or download music at some new website at absolutely no cost.
I was most intrigued though by the thoughtful e-mails you sent concerning my finances. There was one e-mail that you sent that really affected me. I could tell, that you are very concerned about other people such as myself. You wrote me, twice in fact, asking if I would help you. You had some important business proposition that would make the two of us very rich. I nearly considered taking you up on your most generous offer, however I make enough money as it is, that a 10% share of a dead man's $10 million dollar bond is a mere trifle. I hope you did find someone who could have helped you in your effort to transfer the bond into their name, so that the government wouldn't get their hands on the dead man's loot. Government's are awfully greedy, aren't they? And though I dislike speaking ill of the dead, what a silly old man to have such money and forget about leaving it in the bank that you work at, and not make a will to specify who would inherit such legacies! Incomprehensible folly, no? Some people have no regard for others, I suppose.
But you're not all business, you. No, you do enjoy recreational activities like the rest of us. I can appreciate that. Your e-mails about real estate property development were most delightful. I can't tell you how long I spent thinking about the great places where I could erect a vacation home for my family and I. At those rock bottom prices, it was very tempting. And speaking of rock bottom prices, you must be kidding when you say you can get me 10 CDs for a penny. Balderdash! And three books by popular conservative authors for only a buck? No! Even if I just had to pay for the shipping, that'd still be less than a regular book store! And if I charged my future purchases on that new, no-fee, no-hassle credit card you've offered, well that'd just make us less inclined to find a cure for AIDS and cancer, eh? My, oh my, you are most enterprising.
Well, I thank you again, for the concern which you've shown. It is always touching to know that there are people like yourself, out there in the faceless world of the internet, willing to show such unadulterated hospitality. I will apologise in advance for not writing after this, as I will be busy from now until time and memoriam, reading and deleting those subsequent e-mails you will send me. You're a most concerned piece of shit, and I now feel kind of bad for wishing great physical harm on you.
Sincerely yours,
(Should I even bother signing this, since you seem to know me so well?)
PS: You sent me an e-mail not so long ago about a program that could allow me to block unwanted e-mails. I must say it sounds intriguing. . . I am sure you're about to send it to me again, aren't you? Eat me.
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