That's What Friends Are For

I got an email chain letter today. I don't know why these things still annoy me but I just sort of thought that by now they would have gone the way of the crop top . So a friend sent me this one that was supposedly in honour of "National Friends Week". Of course at first I was quite touched by the very personal nature of the message. As most people know, when you want to tell someone you really appreciate them you usually do that with a mass email that was written by some mysterious person who clearly has way too much time on their hands. This message was pretty original and included heartfelt sentiments like "A Good Friend Will Come to Bail You Out of Jail". Well that's certainly one to grow on. Gee, I guess if that's the case then I don't have any "good friends" because all of my friends have managed to stay out of the big house. Then again, I do have a friend who had a warrant out for her arrest because her license was suspended and she rode her bike down to the local police station to turn herself in. However, I didn't bail her out of jail so I guess that still leaves me friendless.

Usually my favourite part of the typical chain letter is "the hook". You know, the part where they tell you who's going to die in the next 24 hours if you don't forward this to sixty people in the next ten seconds. This one had a pretty good one which insisted that you forward it to five people within five minutes and if you did you should prepare yourself for the "biggest shock of your life to occur between 1-4PM the next day". Wow, that is some kind of hook don't you think? Can you imagine the resources it takes to make that happen?

Before you go thinking that I'm being too harsh here, I just want to make it clear that my reasons for despising the chain email letter are not purely selfish. Sure, they're a huge waste of my time but on top of that they're environmentally irresponsible. Just think of the resources that are wasted sending these messages across the world. Think of what we could do with all of the hydro electric power we're wasting by creating, storing, sending, and viewing these messages. Hmmm... now that I'm thinking about it I might have something here. If I play my cards right there might just be a Nobel Peace Prize in this for me somewhere? Seems like they're giving those out to just about anybody these days. Plus, who wouldn't support someone getting a Nobel Peace Prize for eliminating the email chain letter? Now that's a cause everyone can get behind. Well, everyone except for the unemployed I guess. What else are they gonna do with their time?

Before I started preparing my acceptance speech I decided to get back to the matter at hand. I don't usually feel the need to forward or reply to these types of messages but couldn't resist with this one and my response was as follows:

"Dear Friend: Thank you so much for the very personal and heartfelt message. As you can imagine, I was deeply touched. Please let me know what happens to you between the hours of 1-4 PM today as I am anxious to hear what life changing event occurs. I'm sending you this email during those hours and I can only hope for your sake that this is not it."

I guess that's one less person who'll be calling me to bail them out of jail. Mission accomplished.