It used to rile my feathers when my email box got inundated with unsolicited electronic junk mail. I thought, "How dare these people have the audacity to fill my private electronic mail box with unwanted and unasked for advertisements." But I'm cool with it now; my feathers are no longer riled. In fact I invite every Billy, Bob, and Wilma who has something to sell to send me their electronic solicitations. Whether or not I read them is a whole other matter, but by golly I'll download each and every one of them to my hard drive.
No longer do I waste my time trying to block incoming junk mail or get myself "removed" from the numerous mass mailing lists I must be on. After all, nothing in my ISP contract says I have to read this stuff. I can be rid of it with a click of that neat little button that says 'delete' on it, if I so choose. But I do not so choose. I've discovered ways of putting my electronic junk mail to work for me, so I keep every piece I get.
Let's say I'm looking to get out of cleaning the garage or washing the car or going shopping with the Mrs. In these instances I use the excuse, "I can't do it now honey, I've got all this email to answer," at which time I show the Mrs. a long list of unopened junk mail I keep in my Inbox mail window just for this purpose. When she leaves the immediate area I can then go back to the important stuff I was doing, like playing a game of BlackJack, Solitaire, or downloading David Letterman's Top Ten List from the night before.
Electronic junk mail has also given me a feeling of self-importance and has raised my self-esteem. You see I don't normally get lots of personal email. Truth is I can go days or even weeks without hearing from relatives, friends, business associates, or disgruntled readers of this column. So all this junk email has saved me from facing long dry spells of "No New Messages" when I go on-line and check my mail (and we all know how debilitating that can be to one's psyche).
Just like clockwork, I can now count on receiving several E-junk mails a day from people who care enough about me to give me, "A CHANCE TO EARN MILLIONS", or tell me how I can, "TURN MY WEB SITE INTO A CASH COW." Someone even likes me enough to want to sell me (for $7.00) their plans on "HOW TO ASSEMBLE A CABLE DESCRAMBLER." This last one sounded so blatantly illegal I had to read the entire text. (Apparently this person skirts the law by professing his plans are only to be used for educational purposes. Yeah, right!)
I get E-junk advertising, ROCK BOTTOM, CAN'T BE BEAT, LOWEST AIRFARES EVER! I don't know why I get these because I haven't flown in the last 10 years or so, but they keep coming. Then there's the "INVESTMENT OF A LIFETIME" solicitations telling me I can't go wrong if I put all my life savings into their hands. Yeah, I'll bet!
I get lots of email telling me that, I too, can jump on the mass mailing bandwagon. The most recent of these tells me that, for a paltry $125.00, they'll send my email to 10,000 targeted customers who may be interested in my product or service. They also promise that this will PUT MONEY INTO YOUR POCKET!! I only wish I had a product or service that 10,000 targeted customers would be interested in but I don't, so I guess my pockets will stay empty.
The strangest piece of E-junk I ever received came to me in November with a subject line of: TIRED OF THE 9 TO 5? This did not interest me until I opened it and something in the header caught my eye. The date stamp didn't look right. So I read the letter.
Subject: TIRED OF THE 9 TO 5?
Sent: 11/24/45 7:44 AM
Received: 11/7/98 4:13 AM
From: offshore366@yahoo.com
To: offshore366@yahoo.com
Ladies and Gentlemen
Please pardon the email intrusion. We are NOT on the Internet to burden you with unsolicited advertising solicitations and if we have offended you in any way we do sincerely apologize. To be removed from our list please email us back with "remove" in the subject heading and YOU will be deleted immediately.
I am very serious when I say "Do you have the desire to make $2000 to $5000 Plus per week, beginning almost immediately?" How does $10,000 to $25,000 plus per month, and a realistic STRONG SIX FIGURES per Year sound? And how about generating all of this by just sharing information? If you can bring desire and an honest effort to the table, we can show you how to NEVER WORRY ABOUT MONEY AGAIN! Opportunity is truly knocking!
To open the door call Toll Free 1-800-636-6773 ext. 3886
God bless
After reading the above email I came to the only conclusion I could. This is an electronic junk mail from the future, sent in the year 2045. I naturally ruled out 1945 because email wasn't happening back then. This letter from the future tells us that the Internet and Yahoo are still going strong in the year 2045, that the almighty dollar still seems to be the driving force for most people, and that both Toll Free numbers and God are still a part of 2045 society. That's comforting to know, isn't it?
There is another more entrepreneurial reason why I like receiving E-junk. Some people collect baseball cards, beanie babies, antique furniture, Barbie Dolls, aluminum foil, balls of string, et cetera. I collect electronic junk mail. "How stupid is that," you say? Well, you can eat those words when one day in the not too distant future you start hearing about massive shortages of white electronic background.
What? You think there's an unlimited supply of electronic paper out there? You think the white background behind the words on this page just came out of nowhere? It has to be made from something, doesn't it? Bits and bytes of zeros and ones, you say? Sure, maybe, but where do those come from?
Nothing lasts forever my friends, and when the rest of the world runs out of white electronic background to write on I expect people will be beating a path to my door when they hear I've been saving all my E-junk with perfectly good reusable white background.
Maybe you should start doing the same.
•By Pete Miner• <pminer@wolfenet.com>
 
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