Ever since my mother discovered the world wide web late last year, she has made it her duty to forward me every scary, alarmist email that’s sent to her from one of her buddies. You know, the ‘boogie man is lurking behind the bush’ type emails that’s been forwarded about 40 times before it gets to you. These emails usually tells a brief story about a horrible crime that happened to a random woman, but somehow, you’re not able to find any evidence of this published anywhere. Most of the time, I just ignore and delete these emails. Sometimes I research the stories so that I can respond to my mother telling her that its not true. She then responds with a sigh of relief.
These modern urban legends may have a shred of truth, but they are mostly false and designed to scare the daylights out of individuals, mostly women. Who or why these stores are made up and passed around, I do not know. I used to get these emails from random co-workers, and now my mother is sending them to me. I remember there was one about the “deadly germs” on the bottom of your purse from when you set it down in a public restroom (or anywhere else). I remember reading how horrible and nasty these germs are. The thing is, there are germs on the bottom of your shoes. The same germs that many people don’t think twice about when walking into their homes with their shoes on. These are the same dirty, non sterile floors that their babies crawl on. Despite the odds stacked against them, they manage to live.
I think we have enough real reasons to be fearful at times. I don’t need to made up stories to keep me aware of the real dangers out there.
No more emails, please!
My daughter, 10, is bombarded with chain emails from her friends. Spamming your friends with chain emails seems to be the thing to do at their age group. I’m patiently teaching her the meaning of spam emails.
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@Vered – When I was 10, we had chain mail (letters), but it was in the form of real snail mail! They usually instructed us to send $1 to XYZ so that eventually you would get a large sum of money. I forgot how that worked exactly… LOL I wasted $1 and a 25 cent stamp.
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Fear is our companion in life. We have a choice if we want to be conquered by it or take it as a factor of growth.
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I think the longer we are on the Net, and the older we get the easier it is to sniff out the weeds from the flowers. Still, they are annoying. Delete!
Jannie Funster´s last blog ..I AM, Said I
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