You know what I’m talkin’ bout. Inevitably, every day, a FWD pops into your inbox. If this doesn’t happen to you, I want to be you. If so, you have a mom, mother-in-law and a couple of friends like I do (God love ’em).
Do you ever wonder who started this, and more importantly – why they did? Was there, at some point in time, really a burned baby named Jessica who needed money for hospital bills? Did someone really sit down on a theater seat and get poked by a needed with a note that said, “You’ve been infected with HIV” and feel the need to warn the entire world? And, the free stuff forwards…was this a cruel joke all along, or did people really get 150 dollars to spend at Outback Steakhouse, free IBM computers or a dollar for each person they passed the email along to from Bill Gates?
I’ve decided to rank the different types of forwards in order of annoyance:
- The “ALL CAPS Subject Line” forward, i.e., YOU MUST READ THIS!! I delete these immediately because I don’t like to be yelled at in real life, or while checking my email.
- The “Watch What Happens” forward, where if you forward the email to 10 people, a dog/cat/bird/you’llfindoutwhenyousendthis will magically appear on your screen and do something cute. Seriously. This would not happen even if you sent it to 5 million people. If you wish to see a cute animal, turn on your television and watch Animal Planet.
- The “Drug Recall” forward. These tell us there’s an ingredient in everything that is going to kill us, especially cold medicines. The ingredient name is always something similar to aphilastuiomne. Really people, crack heads smoke crack and continue breathing. I think you’ll be ok taking a tablespoon of Robitussin.
- The “Chain Letter” forward, where if you send this to 8 of your friends in the next 8 seconds, good luck will be with you all through the year. Yawn.
- The “Bad Things Will Happen” forward, which is a lot like the Chain Letter forward, only this one goes to great lengths to tell you what terrible tragedies have happened when people didn’t pass the forward along. “My aunt’s best friend got this forward and instead of passing it along, went into the kitchen to cook dinner. Five minutes later, she got a phone call saying her son was involved in a terrible accident.” I saw an accident on my way to work this morning – do you think that person’s dad didn’t forward the forward? That son of a b…
- The “Free Stuff” forward, explained above. My favorite part of these is the alleged tracking system that is used to keep up with who sent who what. That is just not possible, and moreover, why would Microsoft care who you sent an email to?
- The “Danger” forward, otherwise known as “watch your back because everyone is out to get you while you are shopping for the holidays.” This isn’t to say that there are not a whole bunch o’ crazies out there, but I’m not convinced they use the “smell this perfume” route to abduct you. I’m pretty sure they just pull out a gun. Unless of course they read your forward, and now they’ve found a genius scheme. Way to go. And thank you for signing the bottom of the email, Deputy So-and-So from BlahBlah, California, but I still don’t believe it happened.
- The “If You Love Me” forward, usually accompanied by some type of friendship poem, which asks you not only to pass it along, but also to send it back to the person who sent it to you. To all of my friends and family who read this (there are like two of you, I think): I am showing that I love you/value your friendship by NOT sending you forwards.
- The “Political” forward. I received four of these today, and I’ve determined that Hillary (Clinton) is behind these. She’s bitter about not making the ticket, so she’s decided to pester American voters into indifference.
Here’s a chance to do something for your fellow man: The next time you see the Fwd in your subject line, just delete it. Don’t read it, and get all sucked in to the forward hysteria. Delete. Choose not to read about which Barbie represents your college town, which candidate looks most like a giraffe, who Tommy Hilfiger really wants to wear his clothes or the Gas Out of ’08. Delete.
You must pass this blog link along to 9 people in the next minute, or your fingers will turn to dust.
thetightropeblog.com 
damn you for the current state of my dust fingers.