August 8, 2002

     I should warn you. You have no choice but to finish reading this column today or else all sorts of bad luck will befall you in the next few days.

     It happened about a month ago. A reader stopped to attend to personal necessities after reading the first paragraph of one of my previous articles and forgot to return. After a few minutes, five Boy George impersonators barged into his apartment and beat him to death with uncooked lasagna noodles.

     It happened about a week ago. A reader stopped reading because he thought the column stunk. Before he could blink, Mike Tyson appeared, bit his ears, stepped on his testicles and ate all his children.

     However, if you read this column every week and e-mail your friends about it, you will be showered with nothing but good luck. An alumnus now based in Las Vegas sent e-mails to ten of his friends recommending this column. The very next day, Julia Roberts appeared on his doorstep naked and gave him a lap-dance. The good luck did not stop there. The alumnus became a high-roller and never lost a game of blackjack playing in every Las Vegas casino since then. He eventually quit his day job. Today, he has more money than Tiger Woods.

     A balding surgeon from Iloilo discovered this column and e-mailed his friends. The very next day, he had more hair than Ozzy Osbourne. A balding anesthesiologist received one of the e-mails and ignored it completely. The next morning, his wife could not tell the difference between him and Bembol Roco.

     A general surgeon confided recently that since he started reading this column, his cases rose dramatically to two operations a day from two cases a year. But the best part, he said, is that he can now perform appendectomy in less than 7 minutes. He told a curious surgeon-friend about this but the surgeon just laughed hysterically and labeled him a nutcase. The next day, that surgeon performed an appendectomy and ended up taking out the liver.

     Okay, okay, I'll stop.

"The point of chain letters is simple: To polish the ego of some social inadequate by spreading his nonsense all over the world. Chain letter authors would be virus writers if they had even that tiny level of competence."

     I can go on and on but enough already. You didn't believe me for a second, did you? Or maybe, you did believe me. Because you are probably one of those Internet freaks who believe and forward every chain letter that you receive. Chain letters that sound exactly like everything I mentioned above. Chain letters that annoy but you fall for it. If you have forwarded at least one chain letter in your life, put your head between your knees right now and say "Duh" 20 times.

     Chain letters, in whatever form, are evil and they don't work. In fact, U.S. Federal laws consider chain letters illegal. It's amazing how they were able to survive through centuries from letters stuffed in envelopes to electronic mails to, hold your breath, cellular phone text messages! I get at least one chain e-mail everyday. I'm suing for harassment.

     What are considered chain letters? If you are new to e-mails and the Internet, you may not be as pissed off as I am but anything that says "pass this on to 5 people in the next 5 minutes to have good luck forever" or something along that line is considered a chain letter. But let's not restrict ourselves to that. Anything that gets forwarded to so many people even if there are no promises of good luck, like virus alerts or asking help for a cancer patient is considered a chain letter!

     The most common form of chain letter nowadays are friendship stories, wishes and poems that urge you to pass them to everyone in your address book. Most of them promise a favorable but mostly impossible outcome for you if you pass it on to enough people. I got an "Irish Wish" chain letter from a loyal reader last week but instead of telling me to forward it, he asked if I could write about the stupidity of it. Damn right I could!

     Another form of chain letter is the Make Money Fast scheme like the infamous Dave Rhodes letter which has been analyzed more times than the U.S. Constitution. It has a list of 10 people and suggests you forward the letter to bulletin boards (not people)! A twist with this letter is that you start to receive money when you get to position 5 on the list. This is a great if not twisted scheme. What you do is post $1 to each of the first five names on the list, you then delete the first name, add your own name and address as No. 10 and forward the mail to a thousand or more people. When your name reaches the top five, you will start receiving envelopes each containing a dollar. Dave Rhodes is now in jail (it did not help that the 10 original names are all his aliases), and if you live in the U.S., a federal agent may have arrested and charged you with postal fraud already. I'm leaving it to the mathematicians to analyze why this type of scheme doesn't work. If you fall for this, you're on a different level of stupidity.

     Yet another form of chain letters are sad stuff you normally would see only on "Bantay-Bata". Like in the case of a sick girl dying of a horrible tropical disease. It has since been debunked. Other common elements of this form of chain letter may include a story on how the letter was started by some missionary from Congo who later invented the Lean, Mean, Fat-Grilling Machine and typically ends with the line "this letter has been around the world four million times." What the heck does that even mean? Even Madam Auring would not know how many times an e-mail or letter has been "around the world". How do we know that somebody got his wish of having plastic surgery to look like Ben Affleck just because of a chain letter? Who is this person who would start a letter and threatens to kill anyone who would ignore it? Satan on a tuxedo?

     C'mon, people, they are all nonsense, utter pieces of crap! These nomads play with your fears, with your being superstitious. Who isn't superstitious anyway? I am. I don't sweep my floor at night. Every time I see a brown butterfly, I would wish for money. I don't let my kid "cross over me" when I'm lying down. But praise the high heavens, I don't forward these idiotic e-mails.

     There are actually chain letters I can live with. Jokes are okay with me, as long as they are funny. But most of them are not, so please, stop the crap from flooding my Inbox. Other types are actually filled with good intentions like virus alerts that tell you to forward them to all your friends. Of course, this is nothing but plain sh*t. Here's one thing you should know: Major companies do not distribute security or virus alerts through Hotmail or Yahoo. They publish them on their web sites, post a fix on McAfee or Windows Update or tell CNN. Besides, were you warned when some jobless geek living in a tiny Caloocan apartment spread ILOVEYOU all over the world? Another typical chain e-mail of this type claims that Microsoft is conducting a beta test on the free e-mail service Hotmail. As part of this beta test, Microsoft is tracking the progress of the message you have just received. For every person you forward the message to, Microsoft will send you $200 or so. Please do the math. Have you ever wondered that handing out $200 to an ever-expanding number of people would bankrupt even Bill Gates?

     The point of all the types of chain letters according to one website is simple: "To polish the ego of some social inadequate by spreading his nonsense all over the world. Chain letter authors would be virus writers if they had even that tiny level of competence." Yes, there are many stupid Internet users, although most are not (especially if you visit this site, you are definitely smart). We all have our vulnerability, but don't let the stupidity of others rub on to you.

     So what's the big deal with chain letters then? Is this really a problem? Some anti-chain letters organizations like breakthechain.org think it is. One website explains why: "There are two main problems, which affect any type of chain letter. The first is quite simple; the sheer volume of mail generated by a successful chain letter clogs up mail servers and connections, slowing down the whole Internet. The World Wide Wait is quite slow enough already. The last thing you want is for naughtynakednuns.com to take an extra three minutes to load because the Internet is choking on half a billion warnings about a virus that can transmit itself down power cables and make your toaster explode. The second problem is even more annoying. Do you ever wonder where the scum who keep offering you porn, credit cards and FBI-approved investigation software got your email address? Well, I can tell you. They buy addresses in bulk from "marketing" companies (you've probably been offered some of these as well.) Where do the "marketing" companies get addresses? Absolutely anywhere. Had a look at a chain letter recently? Isn't it great how the names and, often, email addresses of everyone it's been sent to are listed on it? I've counted over 200 email addresses visible on one chain letter. A simple program can strip all of these from the message, all ready to be sold to some shithead who will then send you ten messages a day offering you a free life insurance quote. Whoever sent the chain letter to you has already, quite unintentionally, exposed you to this risk. Please don't expose anyone else. A related tip: When forwarding jokes (which are NOT chain letters, because they benefit everyone that receives them and not just some geek) clear out all the email addresses on it before forwarding. This both makes life hard for spammers and reduces the size of the message, so it sends faster."

     There is a solution to this chain-letter plague. Delete them. If a poem touched and inspired you deeply, you may save it, print it, hang it on your wall, but please don't forward it to me. Do you want to respond to a friend or anybody who e-mailed you a chain-letter and want him/her to stop? I am reproducing an anti-chain letter below with the written permission of the original author, John Perry. You may copy and send it, that is, if you care enough:

     "This letter has been sent to you to stop you from sending out chain letters. The original was written in the 3rd century A.D. by a deranged member of the Most Holy Post. That version vanished during the Spanish Inquisition (Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition !). More recently, it was communicated telepathically to Shirley MacLaine by monks on the planet Mongo in the eighth dimension. Now it has been sent to you. Good things will soon be happening to you if you follow the instructions given in this letter. This is no joke! If you do what this letter says to do, every person who owes you money will repay you. The IRS will never audit you again. Hugh Hefner will invite you to house-sit at the playboy mansion while he and the missus go on a six month vacation. Finally, you will be spotted by a head hunter and whisked off into the fast paced life of an insurance salesman in Kansas.

     To get all of this good fortune, you must keep this letter for the next five years. If at any time during that time you receive a chain letter, don't send out any copies of it. Instead, you must send this anti-chain letter back to the person who sent you the chain letter (If you don't know who sent it, send a copy of this letter to a random person). At the end of five years, do the following 'de-briefing' ceremony, and you will be done:

1. Throw salt over your shoulder.
2. Throw salt over Zha Zha Gabor's shoulder.
3. Throw Zha Zha over your shoulder.
4. Walk under a ladder.
5. Do the rhumba under a ladder.
6. Pray the rosary.
7. Pray the zippity-doo-dah, zippity-ay.
8. Drink Vitameatavegimin (3 tablespoons at a time)
9. Mix 2 frogs, 3 locks of Michael Jackson's hair, 2 turtledoves, and the remains of this letter in a cauldron and boil at 375 degrees for 2 hours and 3 minutes.
10. Place the whole mixture in the microwave on saute for 6:53 and place in serving bowls, then chill.
11. Gargle, then spit.

     DO NOT IGNORE THIS LETTER. If you do, nuclear war is a definite possibility. You will develop psoriasis, gout, hemmorhoids, herpes, and/or a common cold. Some day you will definitely die if you ignore this letter!!!!! Furthermore, your next-door neighbor will start a manure farm in his backyard and begin playing the bagpipe (late at night usually). You may even be forced to spend an evening with an accountant and an insurance salesman discussing their work.

     A police officer from Temecula won the publisher's clearing house sweepstakes. A girl in Chicago got the letter and continued sending out chain letters anyway. She died a month later when a ream of paper fell off a truck and crushed the Fahrvervgnugen out of her Volkswagen Bug. Madonna obeyed the letter and discovered the razor. A lot of women didn't follow the letter's instructions and became mothers of Wilt Chamberlain's illegitimate children.

     Don't send out those chain letters and see what happens. You will be shocked to find that none of their curses come true. The person you send this anti-chain letter to will be heartily amused, and besides, its much easier to send out one copy of this than 5 or 20 copies of some dreary chain letter.

     Do note the following: All of the passengers of the Titanic received this letter. When someone on the boat started a chain letter going, they all ignored this letter and passed it along, and the result is history. Dick Grayson carried out the letter's instructions and became Robin, Batman's Boy Wonder. Both Mike Tyson and Robin Givens received this letter and threw it away. Then they got married. Clarence Thomas followed the letter's instructions. Charles Keating didn't.

     In 1987, the letter was received by a young woman in California. It was very faded and barely readable. She promised herself that she would not send out any chain letters. A year later she forgot, and when she received a chain letter, she faithfully typed out the ten copies of the letter and placed them in envelopes. She developed breast cancer, and the doctors told her she would lose both breasts. While rummaging through her desk looking for a bottle of sleeping pills, she found this letter. She immediately threw away all of the copies of the chain letter she had prepared. The next day, the doctors told her they had mistaken someone else's X-ray for hers, and that she was perfectly healthy. Now she's a showgirl in Las Vegas.

     Remember, send no chain letters. Do not ignore this letter."

     My favorite chain letter is no doubt the Neiman Marcus Recipe letter. It tells a story of a woman and her daughter getting ripped off by a $250.00 cookie recipe. The recipe was then forwarded to everyone as a 'revenge' disguised as a campaign to stop corporate greed. I got one actually and perhaps you did too. The story is utterly bogus. Let's be honest here. Have you tried baking the cookie and believed it was really from Neiman Marcus? That's freakin' sad. The story was eventually debunked by an article by The Los Angeles Times as well as by Neiman Marcus.

     Finally, every rule has an exception. If you recommend this site or send a link of this column to all your friends, I won't mind. In fact, I'm encouraging you to do it and all the good things that you've been experiencing will continue to happen to you.

     For example, the sun will still rise in the east tomorrow.

Comments regarding this week's column are welcome. Please fill up the fields below and click Send to Author. Suggestions for future column topics are also encouraged.

     The author's e-mail address is at drgarcia@wvsumedaa.com

     All views expressed on this column and any other by-lined articles on this site are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organization or its members. For comments, please e-mail the author.