Chain Letters or whatever.

I would like to send out a memo to all of my e-mail correspondents and beg for a moratorium on threatening chain letters. I'm sure you know the ones I am talking about. It states up front that you are a valued friend and they want to share with you this lovely prayer, poem, boo hoo story or whatever. It frequently warns you to be sure you read it to the end. Whatever you do, DO NOT DELETE! A pox on your house if you do that!

On some of them there is a 'boo hoo' story about some unfortunate person that was on the brink of disaster when the letter arrived on their computer telling them to say the following prayer and then send it on to 10, 15, or 20 other people within 5 minutes of reading and then sit back and see what happens in four hours, or 24 hours or within the next half hour or so. The 'boo hoo' person recovered, miraculously and now drives a BMW and lives in a mansion.

There is a subtle threat that if you do not abide by the rules and meet the deadline...woe betide you! I have requested that a few of my friends(?) not send any more of these to me because I have an aversion to threats. Some people accommodated me and ceased while others doubled up on them.

I can be gullible at times and I did send them on to other unfortunate people that used to be my friends but I am now rethinking my future participation in these activities.

In recent months, while waiting for the good things promised to me if I participated, my dearly loved Fergus died, soon after that the dermatologist discovered a rapidly growing, aggressive squamous cell cancer on my head, I had to have surgery and then have twenty radiation treatments and then my house was broken into and much of my jewelry stolen. I was subpoenaed for a court appearance to testify against the perp, and upon leaving the Hall of Justice I stopped for a rest room break and by some trick of fate I could not get the stall door open to get out of the restroom and had to stay there yelling my head off to get Linda's attention to spring me. The filthy, obscene writings on the wall of the stall were less than profound. Profane, yes, profound ? No.

One might think I'd had enough, but no, Yesterday a man forced his way into my living room and put his arm around me and kissed me on the top of my head, just missing my bald spot left by the radiation, and called me "Mama" I had never seen this man before in my life and told him to get out of my house! He wanted to sit on the sofa and tell me about the antique store he was going to open down by Walmart. I raised such a fuss and finally clutched my chest to try to quell my heart jumping out and convinced him to leave! Whew! He was still referring to me as Mama.
I called 911 and they were very prompt, four policemen, two cruisers arrived in just a few minutes. I had looked very closely at the intruder and knew the color and type of shoes he was wearing, his jeans, jacket color and ball hat color and his size along with the make and type of truck he was driving. Be on the lookout for a white Ford pick up truck, not a crew cab, and a guy about 6'2 that's going to open up an antique store down by Walmart! Yeah, right!

Back in the days of the Great Depression we had lots of indigents and homeless people, we called them tramps or hobos. They went from door to door looking for hand outs. Mother always found some thing to give them to eat, like a home made jelly sandwich or something. We were not out on the street but close! The tramps or hobos would mark an X on the fence or gate post to let the other less fortunates know that this house may give them a bite. I'm going out to look to see if there is an X on my house. They don't seem interested in food but jewelry and things of that nature seem to be a priority.

If the things that have happened to me lately are the rewards, no, wait a minute, they didn't say they would be good things they just said, "You'll be surprised!" OK, mission accomplished, I've been very surprised and now am ready to hit the return to sender button for chain letters from now on. Be aware and stay alive! Ciao