sonora2sonoma

My godfather introduced me to Spam when I was around nine years of age. The idea of meat being processed and encased in a tin can turned me off back then and continues to perplex me, when I think of it (which is hardly ever) to this day.

During the second World War, the Brits called the stuff, likely with a grimace and a nod to the absurd, “Special Processed American Meat,” hence, Spam. Monty Python is credited with first applying the term to junk email in a sketch that represented the product as “ubiquitous, unavoidable and repetitive.”

It’s oddly fitting then that, in the age of the internet, the name ‘spam’ has come to describe the torrent of unsolicited emails shamelessly assaulting our inboxes each day. Whether by pure chance or cosmic intervention, the irony of that designation is a stunning as it is distressing.

Today I have received 30 spam emails and it’s only a little past noon. They’re the usual ones, purporting to offer me relief from a panoply of problems—a list of troubles covering everything from obesity and hearing issues to skin tag removal and foot massage carpeting., with brief interludes to reflect on deadly fungus, blood balance and failing eyesight.  Curiously, there are also repeated attempts to interest me in tactical air drones. I wonder if these can be programmed to seek and destroy the servers spreading this shit? Not likely, but one can hope!

I’m not a reckless internet explorer (Internaut?) nor a seeker of sensate online pleasures. I avoid sites with even the slightest hint of inappropriateness, sensationalism or sheer idiocy. I never open attachments from people I don’t know, and I always note the return addresses on incoming posts before opening them.

In spite of these and other precautions, however, somewhere in my relatively cautious online ramblings I must have fallen prey to the offspring of some soulless inbred cretin offering a solution to a problem that didn’t exist before I clicked that harmless-looking little check-box.

Now I’m besieged daily with an onslaught of drivel. And, as if that’s not enough, I receive much of it in duplicate. Back-to-back offers from Bye bye fat, Footy Massage Carpet, I-hand Massager, Skin Tag Remover, iHear Pro, Health Tips-Blood Sugar, Health Tips, SkinCell Advanced, Deadly Fungus, and Fit Living. And the day is still young. Who knows what the true count will be when the clock strikes midnight?

It’s quite obvious, judging from the titles, that I’ve been assigned to a demographic whose twin primary foci are remote-controlled flying machines and the joyful physical changes that accompany advancing seniority.  If I were to make comparisons based on these criteria, notwithstanding an apparent fascination with aeronautics, it would be encouraging to discover that, so far at least, I’m not in need of fat cures or fungus therapy, Skin tag removal, maybe, but if I were of a mind to write down my physical complaints in order of priority, that one would be nowhere near the top of the list.

On the other hand, the pessimist in me might view this parade of purported proposals for prospective problems purely in negative terms. Just look, I might tell myself, at all the dreadful things that are liable to befall me sooner or later!

But not today! Such talk is the main reason
I keep my pessimistic side on a short leash.

***

When faced with the deluge of dubious dreck  that accumulate daily in my inbox like turds in a toilet, my first instinct is to flush the damn thing, email address and all, re-brand myself and begin anew.

Alas! If such a thing were easy, I would have done it long ago. It’s not as if I’m so enamored of my username that I can’t bear to change it. And there’s no love lost when it comes to my relationship with Comcast!

That said, the problem is I’ve had the same email address for so long now it’s become associated with more sites than I can possibly remember. Each of these would require updating if I were to change my username.

Then again, maybe I’m looking at it all wrong! Perhaps what I have is a solution disguised as a problem. I suppose if I were to make the change and update every site I can remember, whatever fell through the cracks, if it was important, would make its displeasure known to me sooner or later.

That’s strangely akin to losing data to a hard drive crash, only without the feedback, or losing your belongings to a house fire. Each is brutal in its own way and, while I recommend neither, I can say from experience that both are effective. And, good news! There is life after data loss!

While virtual reincarnation is certainly something to consider, for now at least, I’m putting up with the spam, hoping each day as I move the shite to the “spam” folder that this might be the day my AI driven, so-called “intelligent” spam software will awaken and start filtering the dross out for me.

In the meantime, I try to find the humor in noting the inanity of pitches like that of the “Quinux Drone 4k” that offers to provide “intelligent battery with long battery life.” On its face, it sounds pretty good until I note it’s only referring to the flying robot’s battery state and is making no assertions regarding my personal energy level.

Alright, that was a bit corny, I’ll admit, but look what I had to work with? Thankfully solace can be found in the strangest (or dumbest) of places. If the Quinix Drone 4k lacks the intelligence to extend my battery life, perhaps my daily sorties to the spam folder will keep me on my toes, so to speak, by helping me maintain my mental agility as I watch my physical body slowly surrender to the steady pull of time’s gravity.

One can always hope . . .

Tim Konrad
January 23, 2022