"Wasting somebody else's time strikes me as the height of rudeness. We have only so many hours, and none to waste."
Bill Gates, On Spam: Wasting time on the Internet (3/25/98)

Well, I just couldn't agree more! I do a fine job wasting my own time, I don't need anyone's help. My gripe of choice is junk email. Now, my ISP does a pretty good job of filtering SPAM for me. And the majority of my friends know not to send me stuff unless they're sure I'll enjoy it on some level. But there are those handful of people, apparently still somewhat new to the internet (as we all once were) that insist on sending me a wide array of junk mail, and it can always be identified quickly as the subject line begins with FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:

I don't mind when people send me a funny joke, a truly neat, inspiring or uplifting story, a prayer request for someone that they know...things like that. Here's a list of the junk mail I despise, and why:

Legend Has It
"Ladies, beware of this latest method of sexual predators....tell all of your friends."

Urban Legends. I admit that when I first read the story about the guy who was slipped a mickey and taken to a hotel room only to have his kidneys removed from his body by a group of money-hungry med students, I forwarded that all over the place. I mean, how could I never have heard of this horrific crime?? Well, I'll tell you why. It's a little thing that we generally refer to as fiction. I know what some of you are thinking...better safe than sorry? Okay, let me just tell you this. If the $5-rapist or Dr Kidney-Thief is at large in your community, you'll hear it on the news. And that's good enough for me. How many times have you heard a horrific news story and thought, "Oooh...I saw an email about that! I guess no one forwarded it to that poor sap!"

Okay, if you really think the email is true, check it out before you send it on. It's quick and free to do. www.Snopes.com -- type in a few keywords and you're on your way to truthville.

Your Riches Await
"This email is being tracked and if you forward it to at least 10 people, Bill Gates will pay you $1,000."

Now, come ON! We all KNOW that this isn't going to pan out. Common sense tells you that Bill Gates wouldn't be one of the richest men in the world if he was just tossing money away like this. And most importantly, there is no way to track who forwarded what to whom and how many times. Sure, you can often find out where an email has been if you want to take the time to pull the IP address and look it up, but then you'd have to find the name and mailing address of the person at that IP address. The man hours would be innumerable. But still, there's a little voice inside that says "but what if?" -- we all want free money. But please, next time you see one of these, do your friends a favor...DELETE!

Fear Factor
"If you don't forward this to at least 10 people, you'll have bad luck for 7 years."

Anyone who forwards an email simply for the fact that it told them to has issues. If there is something in the message that I like and want to forward, I'll delete that stupid threat and send it on. And who exactly is this higher power that sits all day and casts bad luck to anti-forwarders? She needs to see the paragraph above, because if she can track email like that, there'd be some money for her in the software development field. And it would likely pay more and be more rewarding than the punishing of innocent email users.

Shame Sham
"Send this email [about God] to everyone in your address book...unless you're ashamed."

Okay, this one really ticks me off. You want to know why? Because it tries to guilt you into sending a stupid email to everyone you know on the basis that if you don't, you're ashamed of God. What?? Excuse me, that's...well...WRONG!! When I see these, I delete them straight away, and I'll explain why. How important do my best-email-friends feel when I send them someone else's religious beliefs, thoughts, theories, whatever through email, with the stupid tag line of guilt at the bottom?? I mean, REALLY?? If you LOVE what the message represents, DELETE THE SENTENCE OF GUILT (no pun intended). I'm sure St. Peter won't be shaking his finger at me saying, "Tsk tsk, you didn't forward your emails about God!"

Right Back Atcha!
"Send this back to the person who sent it to you."

I'm sorry, but why?? I might not delete the email, but I certainly won't send it back to who sent it to me. That's just dumb. I mean, there are exceptions, like the one I got today about making your Captain Underpants code name. That one is cute and fun and quick, and sending it back to the person who sent it is also cute and fun and quick.

Special Delivery
"Send this to all of special people in your life."

You all know these ones. They're jam-packed with cutsie quotes, pictures of Precious Moments and puppy dogs, and little animated graphics of butterflies and fairies sprinkling their love-dust all over cyberopolis. Yes, some of them are really cute. The ones I like generally have a sarcastic spin and have a picture of the lady from Shoebox Greetings. Those make me laugh, and I'm always up for a laugh. But, for my sake, if you think I'm special, just write me an email that says, "Hey, I think you're special!" Don't send me that canned lovey-dovey cutsie crap. I can't hit the DEL key fast enough!!!

I admit that I'm not guiltless, I've forwarded junk email in my time. I've sent pictures that were too large to download. I've typed all caps. We're all constantly learning about the ever-growing and ever-changing web-world, what is and isn't acceptable. If you want to be Captain Netiquette, that's great, but for now I'll just settle for email that contains none of the above.