It started like this. I was at work one day, locked away in my dark office attached to the meat locker (our server room) when slinking through our email system came ---Oh god no--an Email chain letter! (insert ominous music here--oops playing already). Before I could stop myself, I'd chosen forward and followed the directions to send this "good luck totem" to ten of my friends. Being a generally good person both on and off the internet, how could I have done this to my friends? I have tossed their snail mail equivalents in the recycle bin numerous times, so what, what was I thinking?
I must admit it was never easy to toss the chain letters away. Perhaps I shouldn't have, I thought as I briefly contemplated not forwarding this rude bit of mail onward. If I hadn't tossed all those others, perhaps I wouldn't have ever married that silly man that I had to dispose of later. Perhaps I wouldn't have had my car broken into or my been multiply billed by MSN. So, with a glance about for any broken mirrors or opened umbrellas, I hit that send button.
As the ugly replies from my friends begin to roll in, I considered what I'd done and why. I didn't forward this chain mail to help that totem around the world another time. That's insane. Each time you send email, you are lucky if it doesn't hit every server from here to Zimbabwe. No I couldn't claim any interest in that experiment. Perhaps to help my wonderful friends with some extra, blast from the cosmos good luck. Umm, no. I have to disavow any altruism. The simple explanation must be
But wait, am I not a child of the technological age? I wrote basic on my commodore 64. Programmed mad libs into the school Library computer, and even now manage a good sized network, complete with WAN link. Hell, I'd even set up our internet email gateway. How could that grunting, never-seen-a-wheel neanderthal that lurks at the back of my head have been able to control my clicker finger? Logically, I knew that no simple message could change the outcome of my life, yet I wondered somewhere deep in my volcano worshipping soul if maybe, just maybe, one of these things could carry a hex or a curse or a blessing or something powerful enough to rehape the course of the river of my life. If I didn't send this evil bit of bytes zooming around the world, maybe I wouldn't learn to drive this time or worse yet cause an accident when I did. Maybe my Star Trek paraphenalia would stop increasing in value (hey that Jean Luc Picard plate is worth some bucks!) or, gads, I might not get that fourth cat. Zounds! What's a girl to do? It was fear, fear I tell you, of the unknown powers that float in the ether we communicate through; of the powerful juju that started this chain email in the first place,of blackest luck lurking around that next corner. Naaaa, I just wanted to piss off my friends and look clueless! So here's a notice to all would be chain mail senders--send me that crap at your own risk. I've been practicing my own hexes!