Fun with forwards #2

Those of you who read this page regularly probably have no memory of Jasmine, the strange chain mail-forwarding girl, but she's at it again, sending on a really bizarre one to the general inquiry email address of my work. Poor thing...she either has a secret crush that she'll do anything to have work out, or she's cripplingly superstitious, because she sent this one along with the subject line of "stupid chain mail thingy". Why she's sending these things around even though she thinks they're stupid is beyond me, but it's keeping me entertained for a little bit.

AVE A SECRET CRUSH?.....FIND OUT WHO IT IS !

I love that the sloppy copy/paste makes this start off with inadvertant cockney. "'ere, luv, just forwarding on a bit of tea-gale to your fin-socks, 'arry!"

HERE'S WHAT U HAVE 2 DO BUT LISTEN VERY CAREFULLY!!

I keep listening, but I don't hear anything.

SEND THIS LETTER 2 YOUR FRIENDS. AND IF U DONT HAVE ANY FRIENDS NO SWEAT JUST GO 2 A CHAT ROOM PICK OUT SOME NAMES AND BINGO!

I hope this part is a joke.

BUT REMEMBER PASS IT ON!! AND IF U DON'T PASS IT YOU WILL PAY WITH YOUR LIFE!!

My God! This one really ups the ante! Pay with your life? Sounds like a pretty huge consequence of not bugging your friends to find out the name of your secret crush, which is apparently so secret that even you don't know the name.

U. HAVE ONE HOUR 2 SEND THIS SO HURRY. AFTER U SEND THIS A SNAIL WILL CROSS THE SCREEN AND OUT OF IT'S SHELL WILL POP OUT YOUR SECRET CRUSH'S FIRST AND LAST NAME HIS/HER ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER.

My favorite part of this section is that the fact they they abbreviated "you" as "u", BUT correctly put a period after it to identify it as an abbreviation. It's such a bizarre mix of correct and incorrect grammar that I'm going to start using it from now on.

The rest of this section of the letter is clearly the work of drugs. Or perhaps the kind of stupidity that's so deep that it actually gives its owner a kind of high, though not a good a high as the pure grade of stupidity being mainlined by the people who believe that <stops to shake his head in disbelief> a snail...<shakes head>...will cross the screen...and...this is so fucking weird.

I like how this snail is helping you stalk your secret crush by providing the address, though it's funny to think that somehow, you don't have the guts to ask your secret crush for his/her phone number, but that you will, however, suddenly find the courage to call him/her up, explaining that you got the phone number from a mysterious, screen-invading snail.

IF U SEND THIS TO 0 PEOPLE-YOUR LUV LIFE IS OVER!
5 PEOPLE- AND YOUR! CRUSH WILL SAY HE/SHE LIKES U AS A FRIEND ONLY!
10 PEOPLE -AND YOUR CRUSH WILL SAY HE/SHE LIKES U.
15 PEOPLE-AND YOUR CRUSH WILL ASK U OUT.
20 PEOPLE-AND YOUR CRUSH WILL ASK U OVER HIS/HER HOUSE ! ; FOR DINNER.
25 PEOPLE-AND YOUR CRUSH WILL KISS U ON THE LIPS!
30 PEOPLE-AND YOUR CRUSH WILL MARRY YOU AND YOU'LL HAVE TWINS!!!

Ooh! A scorecard! It's like fantasy football.

There's something almost sweet about the chasteness of the 20 people one. Forgetting the odd use of the semi-colon, there's something kind of old-fashioned that they want you to know that your crush is only asking you over to his/her house for dinner. Don't worry...it's not going too fast or anything. It's just for dinner.

But apparently, they don't think that your crush saying he/she likes you, asking you out or over to his/her house, or kissing you on the lips is going to go very well, because you'd have to send it to THIRTY people in order to get anything more than a kiss. Come on, kids! Have some confidence! Send it to 10 people and have some faith that it will work out!

SO DO ME A FAVOR AND KEEP PASSING IT ON tomorrow morning your crush will fall madly in love with you. You guys will hook up, and your crush will ask you out. Tomorrow will be the best day of your life. However, if you don't send this to at least 10 people bye @ least 10:00 tonight you will have bad luck in your love life for the rest of your life. This is not a stupid one or a fake. Just copy and paste

The author of this email knows this much: save the best for last. "This is not a stupid one or a fake" is one of the greatest endings ever. It's like this has been certified by the Stupid Chain Mail Thingy Organization as NOT FAKE.

Of course, this email is a lot less likely to be the work of drugs, stupidity or people fishing for addresses to spam, and more likely to be the work of an 11-year-old. You can tell that it's the work of a kid because they say you'll hook up with your crush AND your crush will fall madly in love with you, which any adult will tell you never happens.

So take both the email itself and the fact that it's being kept alive by Jasmine and her friends as a reminder that no matter how concerned you may be about growing older or any of your other adult-life worries, it's really, really good to be a grownup.