I can't add my name to your niece's school research project. You know my name or you couldn't have sent me the email; you add my name to the list and forward it. For that matter, your niece could have added your name. I don't care that it's not scientific; it's less trouble to me.
I can't change one letter in the last word of Word Scrabble and forward it to the next victim. Is this like a long cyber game of musical chairs? Will someone eventually get stuck, unable to form a new word, and lose the game? Is there one loser and three hundred and fourteen winners? I'm thinking there probably aren't prizes for us. So no forwarding. I quit.
I can't send uplifting cartoons to my friends and wait for the surprise message that comes when I do everything correctly. No surprise message ever comes. I have waited an embarrassing number of times for the surprise. It never ever comes.
I can't tell ten amazing women they made a difference in my life, including the amazing woman who sent me the email. And she is amazing, truly awe-inspiringly. It's so hard to tell each of these amazing women that you aren't playing. And of course, the woman who forwarded the email to you couldn't tell some other amazing woman, maybe her sister-in-law, her best friend, her mother, that she wasn't going to forward this time or ever again. So each time we get one of these emails, we incredible women each consider who among our friends and relatives are the nicest, or the most sentimental, or who like us the most, or to whom we haven't forwarded for awhile, and we hit send. We say a little silent prayer that our friends will understand.
We are collectively wasting enough time to stop the Iraq war, turn the economy around, get gay marriage legalized in all fifty states, and maybe even de-weird Charlie Sheen.
Can we all just say no?
Just to be clear, I still want anything funny.
Your local curmudgeon,
Me
I'm 100% with you on this. No more chain letters of any kind. No more demands that I post something heartwarming or patriotic as my Facebook status. I don't care how correct or sympathetic it may be; I'm not going to do it. No more weird inspirational or political emails chock full of made-up [utterly erroneous] "facts." No more humor that demeans those who disagree with you. -- On the other hand, if you come across something genuinely, stomach-ache-and-tear-inducingly hilarious, do please send it my way.
ReplyDelete-- Didi
I'm in!!! I mean I'm out. I'm joining the army of amazing women who have taken the 'forward' icon off their toolbars!
ReplyDeleteJust say no! Step away from the toolbar.
ReplyDeleteI so much agree with your blog on emails that demand forwarding, especially the ones that threaten financial or other ruin if you don't forward them. I never forward them, and so must have many curses on my head. I don't understand why friends would send these things to me. And the dreary darkness is something I feel, too. Thanks for the lovely blog creations!
ReplyDelete