One Man's Garbage

I came home a little tipsy one evening about a month ago and instead of deleting everything in my junk e-mail box, I decided to respond to each and every one of them. Like me, you probably thought this stuff was pure garbage. I’m glad I took the time to find out for sure. Since then, my life has changed drastically for the better.

I’m sure you’re all probably dying to know so I’ll start out with the penis enlargement e-mails. Mine is so big now that I had to build a little house for it outside. It’s nice because it can run around and play in my fenced-in back yard. On the down side it attacked the mailman yesterday. “Bad boy! Bad Boy!” Oh, but look how cute he is, you just got to love him.

The work-at-home scheme from the e-mails has also paid off handsomely. I’m not allowed to divulge the nature of my employment but I can tell you what I’m not doing. I’m not taking out small classified ads in newspapers like that guy, Bob, on TV claims is such an easy way to make a quick bundle. I came across one of his ads recently in the local paper: “I will suck your cock for $5, Bob.” Gee Bob, why didn’t I think of that?

I paid off my mortgage just like they promised in the torrents of e-mails I’ve been deleting for years. The funny thing is that I didn’t have a mortgage so I paid off the national debt of Argentina. I just received a thank you note from them the other day, “Muchas gracias, Leftbanker.” De nada, Argentina, but maybe you guys can show a bit of fiscal restraint in the future? I mean, do you really have to have all of the pay movie channels? It turns out that most of their national debt was the result of late fees at Blockbuster.

I think that’s probably enough for this gag.

If I may pose a serious question in this questionably humorous essay it would be this: Can spam e-mails possibly be an effective marketing strategy? I suppose it must be effective or they would stop doing it. Perhaps their strategy is simply to annoy the living shit out of people. If that is their strategy, it is working brilliantly.

We have a garbage can right next to the mail boxes in my building. I once asked the postman if I could just make the garbage can my mail box so all I’d have to do is fish the very few pieces of important mail out of the can instead of transferring all of the junk mail to the trash. He told me he’d get back to me on that one.