SPAM spam Spam SPAM…

Faster than the latest high-speed connection… more powerful than a radio jingle… able to fill an electronic mail box in a single download… IT’S SPAM!!!

Lately, I’ve had to ask myself some difficult questions… Do I suffer from a small penis? Do I have trouble falling asleep at night? Would I like to lose weight while I’m sleeping? What the *#$! is digital cable? And why do cable companies not want me to know about it? Is there incriminating pornography on my computer, or is someone just trying to scare me? Who wants to steal my identity?

Hmm hmm… first things first.

Can anyone truly suffer from a small penis? Or is this just typical “bigger is better” American hyperbolic hype? I can see a ridiculously LARGE penis causing suffering (though I’d rather not think about it) but a small one? What kind of damage could it really do?

But of course, we’ve been taught here in the good ‘ole U.S. of You Better Feel Insecure About Yourself Or You Might Stop Buying Useless Crap that there is no such thing as “too big.” It’s what women want, right? (Yeah, right—I don’t really believe that they were consulted in these polls.) As big as Godzilla’s leg… nay… as big as a Viking ship… as big as the Eiffel Tower!!! Nothing could please her more…

Valium, Viagra, Adipex, Diazepam, Zoloft, Xanax, Prozac, Ultrim, Ativan, Trazodone… I mean, what is all this stuff? It sounds more like the character cast for a gladiator movie than anything I’d want to put into my body. What kind of culture needs this many prescription drugs? Oh, excuse me… we don’t even need a prescription anymore – just an email address, a credit card and the vague feeling that something in our lives isn’t quite right. Maybe the little purple pill will help…

And yes – sometimes I do have trouble falling asleep at night, but knowing that we are all being bombarded by rabid pharmacological fanatics around the clock is not really helping that condition, thank you very much. I’ll take my nice cup of chamomile tea and a hot bubble bath over whatever Sonata is any day… sounds a bit too much like Soma… or the latest Japanese compact car. Either way, I’m not going to take it, no matter how much the Spam flashes annoyingly at me letting me know that I may have already won.

And no, I DID NOT receive this email because I signed up at one of RX-Online-Store web sites or I signed up with a party that has contracted with RX-Online-Store. You are all terribly full of it. Oh sure… and if I just “click here” you will stop sending me ads FOREVER. Uh huh… pull the other one – it plays the Star Spangled Banner.

Lose weight while I sleep?!? Is this safe? Apparently, I can slap a patch on my backside right before bed and wake up twenty pounds lighter. This, for some reason, does not appeal to me. In fact, it sounds more like some terrible nightmare I would have after eating salami, baked beans and a half pound of dried apples too close to bed time than a desirable alternative to actually taking care of my body. In fact, fear of this sort of thing could contribute to my trouble falling asleep in the first place – thank heavens I can just order a pill to take care of that.

Digital cable… whatever. Number one, I don’t have any comprehension what it is. Number two, I don’t HAVE a cable company which wouldn’t want me to find out about it. Pay for television? Not likely. When the cable salespeople come to my door they always stop short when they realize that they don’t have a shpeel for the response “I don’t own a television.” Not knowing what else to say, they ask if I’m planning to get one. When I respond that I haven’t watched it for fifteen years, don’t miss it one bit, and will leave establishments who try to force me to watch it, they just sort of stand there slack-jawed and drooling on my porch.

And my favorite… WARNING! You have been detected viewing adult material! Or, even more threatening… Your Harddrive Is Storing Harmful Evidence!!! Someone has seen you visiting adult material!!!

Hmm… do you think they’re referring to the James Joyce site I visited last week? I mean, small children probably wouldn’t have much interest in that. Or maybe it was the site describing the Eightfold Path… Or perhaps the article on Relativism, Identity and Twentieth Century Literature… Geez -- I hope no one saw me...

Somehow, I don’t think so. I find this ironic for a couple of reasons. First of all, no one in this house has ever visited pornographic sites with this hard drive so there is no way that we could have been “caught” doing it. (Unless, of course, I’m to believe that sexually curious elves really ARE living in our duct work and sneak out at night just to look at porn on our computer.) This is true despite all of the Spam we’ve received boasting things like “See Horny Japanese Teenager Do It With a Horse!” Um, yeah… THAT sounds appealing. I’d be more likely to check out “Watch ’72 Buick Rust On the Beach!” or “See Yourself Torn Apart By Wild Dogs!”

Secondly, I find it funny that people consider pornography “adult” material. Really, in my past brushes with porn, I saw very little in it which would constitute any kind of maturity or “adult”ness. (My partner and I laugh every time we drive past an “adult” bookstore, wondering how many people are inside that we would actually consider “adult” in any way other than chronological age.) Don't get me wrong -- I uphold people's right to look at whatever they want to look at -- I just don't personally find that most of this material depicts anything which I would consider particularly mature or healthy in the way of modeling actual adult relationships. However, I suppose that visiting porn sites is such a universally American past time that such warnings would grab the normal guilt-ridden but sexually voyeuristic person by the heart of their repressive Judeo/Christian consumeristic conscience and shake them into action.

That whole dynamic is very illustrative of American culture in general, I think. First of all, we are expected –nay, assumed – to all be fascinated by pornography and just chomping at the bit to go look at it as soon as our wife / husband / whoever is out of the room / house. It is unthinkable that we wouldn’t have the urge to do this. (Of course, as good Consumer Americans, we wouldn’t be having actual sex with our spouses… we’re much more apt to feel isolated and unhappy if we just watch other people do it, and thus more likely to buy something to make us feel better about what is lacking in our lives. Perhaps there’s a pill for that...) Furthermore, it is also assumed that we would feel guilt at such an act, would fear “getting caught,” and would do ANYTHING to hide the "dirty truth" from others. I.e., you MUST do it and you MUST feel guilty about it. And why? So that we can use the ambivalent taboo of sex to sell things, silly! Tits and beer… tits and beer… beer = tits. It is very simple and well-proven monkey conditioning – just ask Skinner.

And then there’s identity theft. Just fill out this form including your bank account number, your social security number, your mother’s maiden name, your credit card numbers… hmm… Isn’t this exactly the kind of information that someone who was trying to steal my identity would ask for? Hmmmm…?

And last but not least, my favorite. The subject line reads “Finally a smart spam control solution you can trust.” I am then invited to take a “Free Spam Test” to see if spam is driving me crazy. I don't really think I need a test to answer this question...

There are thirty-seven copies of this email in my Deleted file.