The Email Chain Letter Curse

My Poor, Doomed Inbox
You know those "No Solicitations" signs you can hang on your door? I wish they made them for Inboxes. Except mine would say, "No Solicitations OR Stupid, Pointless Email".

I don't know what's worse anymore - the false stories that no one bothered to check out before sending to all 102 people in their address book, the spam, scams, viruses, and Nigerian 419's, or the absolutely retarded, stupid shit people pass on because they think it's "cute" or "funny" - when it's anything but.

Who has time to sit and read "moving" emails about God, friends you ignore, and missing children who are no longer missing? Who wants to sit and sift through pictures of old comic strips, cute puppies & kittens, or hunky men? What sane person has a hankering to watch corny, over-done and supposedly funny videos sent to them by imbecilic pals?

Not me!

I get enough junk from people I don't know - I surely don't need my address bookers sending me superfluous crap. If you feel the same, read on and share with me in the insanity and mind-numbing insanity of the "Chain Letter Email Curse"...

The Curse Begins
I recently received a chain letter at work - it was one of those with gruesome stories of people who had died for ignoring the chain letter and for not passing it on.

I hate these things! As a wise woman once said, it's akin to threatening (thanks, Mom). You're basically threatening the people you send this to -

Hi Friend - I read this horrible thing, I passed it on so I could live, and now I'm putting you in this precarious life & death situation.

It reminds me of the movie The Ring!

Naturally, then, I was aggravated by the one I got at work, but I ignored the ominous threats and hit DELETE.

Then it happened. I came to be haunted by the Chain Letter Curse!

It was true! I experienced a run of bad luck after deleting the email - in the guise of ten more stupid people forwarding the same asinine chain letter to me in hopes of saving their pathetic lives!!

Just lovely. Then, the final straw - someone I didn't even know sent it to me! They apparently had gotten my name off the list of forwards from someone that sent it to them. Just making sure they don't die a horrible, gruesome death, right? How can we fault them? Because they're a bunch of friggin' idiots!! You WILL NOT get hit by a drunk driver while leaving a masquerade ball like "Katie Robbenson" - the fiancee that just proposed to you will not get turned into pulp by an 18-wheeler just because you did not forward a STUPID email! Did I even need to say that?!

The Ultimate Chain Letter
The point of the rant is that reading this tripe brought to mind a hilarious chain letter that went around in email awhile back that made fun of threatening and stupid chain letters.

I surely appreciated the humor - and needing to see it again to rid me of the aggravation of the recent ones I've received - I went in search of it. And here, in all its silly glory, a sentiment shared by us all:

The Ultimate Chain Letter
Author Unknown

Hello, my name is Basmati Kasaar. I am suffering from rare and deadly diseases, poor scores on final exams, extreme virginity, fear of being kidnapped and executed by anal electrocution, and guilt for not forwarding out 50 billion frigging chain letters sent to me by people who actually believe that if you send them on, then that poor 6 year old girl in Arkansas with a breast on her forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her redneck parents sell her off to the travelling freak show.

Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you and everyone you send "his" email to $1000? How stupid are you? Ooooh, lookyhere! If I scroll down this page and make a wish, I'll get laid by every Playboy model in the magazine! What a bunch of crap. So Basically, this message is a big STUFF YOU to all the people out there who have nothing better to do than to send me stupid chain mail forwards.

. Maybe the evil chain letter leprechauns will come into my apartment and sodomize me in my sleep for not continuing the chain which was started 5 A.D. and was brought to this country by midget pilgrims on the Mayflower and if it makes it to the year 2000, it'll be in the Guinness Book of World Records for longest continuous streak of blatant stupidity.

Screw them.

If you're going to forward something, at least send me something mildly amusing. I've seen all the "send this to 50 of your closest friends, and this poor, wretched excuse for a human being will somehow receive a nickel from some omniscient being" forwards about 90 times. I don't bloody care. Show a little intelligence and think about what you're actually contributing to by sending out forwards. Chances are it's your own unpopularity.

THE FOUR BASIC TYPES OF CHAIN LETTERS:

Chain Letter Type 1

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Make a wish!!!

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No, really, go on and make one!!!

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Oh please, they'll never go out with you!!!

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Wish something else!!!

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Not that, you pervert!!

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Is your finger getting tired yet?

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STOP!!!!

Wasn't that fun? :)

Hope you made a great wish :)

Now, to make you feel guilty, here's what I'll do. First of all, if you don't send this to 5096 people in the next 5 seconds, you will be raped by a mad goat and thrown off a high building into a pile of manure. It's true! Because, THIS letter isn't like all of those fake ones, THIS one is TRUE!!

Really!!! Here's how it goes:

Send this to 1 person: One person will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.

Send this to 2-5 people: 2-5 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter.

Send this to 5-10 people: 5-10 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter, and may form a plot on your life.

Send this to 10-20 people: 10-20 people will be pissed off at you for sending them a stupid chain letter and will napalm your house.

Thanks!!! Good Luck!!!

Chain Letter Type 2

Hello, and thank you for reading this letter. You see, there is a starving little boy in Baklaliviatatlaglooshen who has no arms, no legs, no parents, and no goats. This little boy's life could be saved, because for every time you pass this on, a dollar will be donated to the Little Starving Legless Armless Goatless Boy from Baklaliviatatlaglooshen Fund. Oh, and remember, we have absolutley no way of counting the emails sent and this is all a complete load of crap. So go on, reach out. Send this to 5 people in the next 47 seconds. Oh, and a reminder - if you accidentally send this to 4 or 6 people, you will die instantly. Thanks again!!

Chain Letter Type 3

Hi there!! This chain letter has been in existence since 1897. This is absolutely incredible because there was no email then and probably not as many sad pricks with nothing better to do. So this is how it works:

Pass this on to 15,067 people in the next 7 minutes or something horrible will happen to you like:

Bizarre Horror Story #1

Miranda Pinsley was walking home from school on Saturday. She had recently recieved this letter and ignored it. She then tripped in a crack in the sidewalk, fell into the sewer, was gushed down a drainpipe in a flood of poopie, and went flying out over a waterfall. Not only did she smell nasty, she died. This Could Happen To You!!!

Bizarre Horror Story #2

Dexter Bip, a 13 year old boy, got a chain letter in his mail and ignored it. Later that day, he was hit by a car and so was his boyfriend (hey, some people swing that way). They both died and went to hell and were cursed to eat adorable kittens every day for eternity. This Could Happen To You Too!!!

Remember, you could end up just like Pinsley and Bip. Just send this letter to all of your loser friends, and everything will be okay.

Chain Letter Type 4

As if you care, here is a poem that I wrote. Send it to every one of your friends.

Friends

A friend is someone who is always at your side,

A friend is someone who likes you even though you stink of shit, and your breath smells like you've been eating catfood,

A friend is someone who likes you even though you're as ugly as a hat full of arseholes,

A friend is someone who cleans up for you after you've soiled yourself,

A friend is someone who stays with you all night while you cry about your sad, sad life,

A friend is someone who pretends they like you when they really think you should be raped by mad goats, then thrown to vicious dogs,

A friend is someone who scrubs your toilet, vacuums and then gets the cheque and leaves and doesn't speak much English... - no, sorry that's the cleaning lady,

A friend is not someone who sends you chain letters because he wants his wish of being rich to come true.

Now pass this on! If you don't, you'll never have sex ever again.

The point being?

If you get some chain letter that's threatening to leave you shagless or luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it's funny, send it on.

Don't piss people off by making them feel guilty about a leper in Botswana with no teeth, who's been tied to a dead elephant for 27 years, whose only saviour is the 5 cents per letter he'll receive if you forward this mail, otherwise you'll end up like Miranda. Right?

Now forward this to everyone you know otherwise you'll find all your knickers missing tomorrow morning.

The Curse Revisited
A few months after I was first struck with the curse, it reared its ugly head once more. Under the cloak of darkness it stole into my Inbox like a thief in the night - to rob me of my precious life if I did not heed it's warning.

Today, I'm more convinced now than ever of the Chain Letter Curse. It IS true - you WILL have bad luck if you don't send this thing on. I know because I KEEP GETTING THE DAMN THING SENT TO ME - and what worse luck is there? As many times as I've gotten it and deleted it, I or my lover should have been killed numerous times.

The thing that cracks me up about this one is the subject line: 'Read this alone'. Why? So my friends standing behind me reading along can't humiliate me into NOT hitting the Forward button? What kind of friends would they be anyway? Don't they know that you'll DIE if you don't forward this thing out to 2347 people in 7 seconds??!

The second best thing about these chain letters are the people that send it and write things such as, "I don't really believe in this stuff, but, better safe than sorry." Are you kidding me?

I got one like this the other day - it stated if I didn't re-send the email out to umpteen number of people in a set amount of time, I would have bad sex for the rest of my life. The person who sent it wrote, "I know this probably isn't true, but just in case...". "Probably", eh?

I'd bet my life that the probability of not forwarding an email causing you to have awful sex is nil. Maybe you're having bad sex because no one you know will have anything to do with you because you keep sending them stupid chain letter emails? It's a thought.

The concept of threatening people and scaring them into forwarding your stupid email to the largest amount of people possible astounds me. Maybe it shouldn't - we are talking about the human race here.

Speaking of stupid emails, (and while I'm on a roll) another one that I love getting is the email that tells you half a story or joke, then states that you have to forward the email to 599 people and then hit the CTRL key (or F2 or Shift + Alt - it varies) and the rest of said story or joke will magically appear on your screen. I've seen a great many variations on this one - send it to 900,876,475 people and a coupon to some major store will appear on your screen, send it to 1 person and Mickey Mouse will dance across your screen, so on and so forth.

People, just for the record, it is impossible for a forwarded email to cause anything to come up on your computer screen. I don't care if you hit Tab + F5 + Shift + T for all eternity; it isn't going to happen.

I got one of these at work a few weeks ago, and went ahead and added my own ending - and sent it back to everyone that sent it to me. It got quite a laugh.

I guess I'll end this with a message for all of those small minds out there:

Listen up, kiddies...this is important and could save your friendships (because if you keep sending those emails, you won't have any friends anymore).

  1. Not forwarding an email cannot cause you, or anyone you love, to have bad luck, bad sex, a broken computer, or to die. I promise that you will wake up tomorrow morning in the same state of health as you went to bed the night before if you hit the Delete key rather than the Forward one.
  2. Forwarding an email is not going to make Rocky & Bullwinkle dance across the screen, materialize a $100 coupon to Dillard's, or solve the riddle of which came first (the chicken or the egg?). It really doesn't matter how many people you send it to, or which keys you hit. It can't happen. It's as improbable as someone walking on water. So, unless you're Jesus, just delete this one.
  3. The people who originally sent these out are pathetic wastes of human flesh who just want lots of people to read their crappy poems and Hallmark-ish "remember-your-friends" sentiments. Perhaps they are disgruntled employees who were fired from Hallmark. Whatever the case, you shouldn't need an email to remind you to love your friends and be thankful for them. Feel sorry for the person that has to threaten people to get their work read, and don't allow their free world-wide exposure to continue. Hit Delete.

I think that just about covers it. As always, I feel as if I'm saying things that shouldn't need to be said. Yet, obviously, it does.

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