January 21, 2004
Email

E-mail.  It’s the modern day umbilical cord to friends and home.  Along with skinny vanilla lattes and TV remote control, e-mail an absolute necessity of life.   As of today the Maynards are kicking back on Maui.  Keeping in touch with far away folks and friends via the ‘puter is a very cool part of our day. 

      Plugging in and turning on outside the friendly confines of Happy Valley always leads to the AOL mystery voice announcing, “You have mail”.   This electronic call to arms is inevitably followed by the cultivation of the weeds in my electronic garden. Immediately deleted are the myriad spam’s offering the “lowest mortgage rate in history”, sure fire methods of improving one’s physical appearance using herbal “magic elixirs” and a no cost, but supposedly very erotic, spy-cam girls dorm tour. What then remains of that days e-mail will include a message or three from friends and family plus, conservatively speaking, two hundred sixty two gazillion messages with “fw” in the address.  Yes forwards; a collection of mostly old, oft repeated, jokes plus occasional well meaning pithy words of wisdom passed along from friends, acquaintances and total strangers who assume it their civic and/or Christian duty to make me aware of the latest anti-government screed or Nostradamous warning.   

     Politicians have passed laws regulating “Spam”, the inter-net’s answer to telemarketing.  Congressmen please, I can deal with the  “Order your Viagra here” and “Work an hour a week at home and earn over a million dollars a year” spam, but I’m drowning in Fw’s.  If Bill Gates can conjure up Windows, why can’t his fertile mind give our ‘puters a simple filter screening out all jokes over a quarter of century old?  Or any joke that begins Bill Clinton and…  I don’t care who’s playing golf with Slick Willie, or the names of his fellow passengers when the planes engines fail, or Bill’s effect on the time clock in heaven, I’ve read all those e-mails.  Fifty times.  Minimum.  I’m tired of Billy jokes and I’m a Republican.  Eliminating all references to Hillary’s husband plus filtering any joke first told during the Kennedy administration would make e-mail management a breeze.

     Dealing with other useless messages that seem to arrive on a daily basis, please know Mrs. Nat “King” Cole didn’t give anyone a TV set, Target is based in Minneapolis, not France, and is one of America’s most giving companies, and Mr. Rogers was never a Navy Seal and didn’t wear long sleeved shirts to cover up the tattoos on his arms.  You should also know, before you’re tempted to Fw my direction, I’m aware a hundred times over, members of Congress do not participate in Social Security and the Marines supposedly only started to again salute their Commander-in –Chief when Dubya came into office.

     For those of you new to the net, here’s really sad news.  Bill Gates and Applebee’s don’t care how many e-mails you forward; neither money nor free meals are headed your way.  

    While I’m being cranky about e-mails please know any message sent to my address demanding a forwarding to a minimum of ten friends causing something “magic” to occur when the space bar is touched, ain’t gonna happen on this end.  And why, on these e-mails where one isn’t supposed to break the chain or something horrific, like the Cubs not getting into the World Series, is guaranteed, is one requested to not only foist it on ten soon to be former friends, but also “Fw” the e-mail back to the person who sent it?  That guy isn’t getting enough Fw’s?  They want the same old joke, the one they’ve already read and sent to return ten fold?  I don’t think so.

     Hey e-mails are terrific.  I’m crazy about funny jokes I’ve never heard, as few and far between as they seem.   But instead of taking the time to send along old jokes why not fill me in on your life?  Sure it’s different, sending a message you’ve actually written, but it’s far more interesting than Bill Clinton and puppies.   For instance, write about your winter trip.  But on the subject of vacations don’t you dare return from a holiday, discover a plethora of “Fw’s” on your computer, and compound the felony by sending every single one my direction.  People committing that sin are wearing out my delete key.