SPAM-alot

This might be the most ironic blog that I have posted yet, seeing as how I do work in an industry that utilizes e-mail communication to the masses. 'We send out emails to our prospective students in order to maintain. . . .' blah, blah, blah. Bottom line, we are spammers. Those emails that you get 10 copies of over the course of 3 days. . . yeah, that's my company. Sidebar - I am not directly responsible for these emails and cannot be held accountable for your mailbox being over it's size limit so don't hate.

Anyway, back to my point about this being ironic. The background on this takes a minute so please be patient. Additional warning - this is in no way meant to be sacrilegious. . . just truthful observations.

The tirade that I am bringing to the table today was spawned by a conversation with my good buddy Vale. Vale is a long-time friend and as such, still has my original email address that, embarrassingly enough makes reference to a time when 'Friends' was still on TV and it was popular to quote it. Anyway (again), Vale was kind enough to shoot me an email and in my response, I started to tell him that I was lucky that I saw it because that address is now my official 'Junk Email Address' - you know, the place where you send everything that you signed up for or needed an email address for like Ticketmaster or Delta Airlines? (You can usually pick out if a person sent you to their junk address by the email address itself. If it's their name @yahoo, you are typically ok. If it's something like cutiepie36@hotmail.com or lovestransformers@aol.com, you can pretty much bet that you have been junked.)

So this conversation got me thinking about the mass amounts of SPAM that I get every day at this email address and how it's nothing short of a miracle that the account hasn't expired. (I'd like to thank MSN Today for reminding me on a daily basis that I need to empty it.) I get all sorts of stuff to this address but there is one major violator when it comes to SPAM. You know who it is? My grandmother. Nope, that wasn't a typo. That's right world, my grandmother is a spammer and one of the worst kinds! Not only do I get email (strike that, I very RARELY get an actual email that she has written and if I do, it's to the whole free world) after story after poem after pictures of cute kittens hugging puppies , the emails usually have some sort of religious bottom-line that is hidden in the depths of the sign-off.

Again, this is where this could go astray. I am a religious person. I believe in God. I respect Him and the fact that He gives us blessings. I do not, however, think that He starts or even really condones SPAM.

I'm sure you have all seen what I am talking about - you get some random email that talks about friendship or some inherently good moral value and then the email is ruined by the line 'If you love Jesus, you will forward this to everyone you know. If you don't love Jesus and hate all people, you will delete this.' Now, is that really fair? Just because I don't feel like spamming my friends with some 40 page story doesn't mean that I hate Jesus and all people. In fact, I would argue that I love humanity more by stopping this INSANITY! Besides, I am yet to see the 11th commandment that states 'Thou shalt forward all emails about ______ (insert moral value here) post haste.' Yup, that fits right up there with 'Thou shalt not kill.'

I will even give you the fact that these uplifting emails do have their place - every once in a while and without the shameless reference to religious icons. I can take emails that are about religion and ones that are good-hearted stories. . . every once in a while. . .BUT without the side of guilt, please! No need.