It's not really mail....

Let me just go on record as saying that I hate chain letters. Those nasty things with which friends (now former-friends) fill up your email Inbox. I love to get mail from my friends and relatives. I see the Sender's name in my Inbox folder and click it with some anticipation.

It's a chain letter. These ought to be against the law. It's not mail, it's a promise of sorts. If you [insert gimmick here], then you must send it on to a dozen of your friends who are likewise appalled at finding it in their Inbox. You must also sent it back to the original sender to ensure that you are put on a permament chain-letter mailing list, you big LOSER. Then the power of the chain will reward your devotion with riches, great health, yada, yada. And if you do not follow the rules, egads, break the chain(insert eerie music here), you will be expelled from friendships the world over. Yeah, right..

To a lesser degree, forwards should also be outlawed. You see the "FW:" in the the Subject line and groan "Oh crap, not another (pick one) [political cartoon, photo of an enormous vegetable, funny joke, animated PowerPoint holiday card].

But again you recognize the Sender's name and despite a bizillion warnings "Don't open email's with attachments", you click on it. And there is not a single original thought from the sender. It's just the content of an email that was sent to them. It's like a time bomb . It doesn't have to have a virus or worm hidden in it to be trouble. It has just eaten up your time in opening, reading, deciding whether to bomb them back, deleting the email, emptying your Trash folder and then finally, deciding if you want to add the sender to your Blocked email list.

The worst emails are those unsolicited offers for cheaper medicine (spelled mEd1c!ne so it gets past your email filters), enlarging your penis, refinancing for your house...you get the idea. It makes me wish that stoning was still allowed. I would like to wrap their emails around a stone and heave it at them.

It's not really mail. It's like somebody dropped a flaming bag of dog poop on your front porch, rang the door bell and ran away.