My sister’s at it again. She just sent me the Internet Email Tax story and urged me to write my congressman about it. The story she sent was verbatim of what’s on Snopes. (“Federal Bill 602P”)
She’s sent me similar UL’s before, and I debunk them, replying to all her CC list so that more people are enlighted.
My dad even falls for them, but usually the ones that she sends him.
Maybe I should send her some in a serious voice. Maybe she’ll get rid of her Disney movies when I point out how much smut is in them. :D:D
Send her the one about Hollywood stars importing war dead from Rachmanistan as part of the new “People Who Eat People” diet. Importing the bodies for food purposes is perfectly legal and untaxed under a bizarre loophole in Federal law (Loophole Number U420). I wrote a ton of crud on this one in other posts because I think it would be fun if I ran into it later. Maybe a search for Rachmanistan would work. (Rachmanistan is nestled between Freedonia and the former Soviet Union. It has been suffering from a grinding civil war started by Al Gore. In addition to war dead, Rachmanistan exports several species of spider.)
My favorite is this one. I worked for a software company. One would think that if you discovered a virus or a possibility of one you would notify IS. We once had a dumb ass sales rep send out a message about the elf-bowl virus to the entire fucking company. About 200 people. I mean, talk about causing panic. What a fucking moron.
Wait a minute…wait a minute…Are you saying these things aren’t true? I’m not going to get free Gap Clothes in the mail? That little lost girl was never lost? Damn.
I’m still getting that 1000 bucks from Bill Gates, though. Right?
I don’t know what’s worse, getting spammed by misguided but well-intentioned friends or them getting all huffy when you point out the scam/ul/chain letter/etc. Enough to make me start my own UL but if I do it will be in secrecy. With documentation of course, sealed registered letter to myself, that won’t be revealed until it shows up on Snopes’ site.
But those ULs are all true - they have all happened to my friend’s brother’s boss or my co-worker’s mother-in-law or someone else whom I don’t actually know but I know someone who does! What’s the matter with you people? Don’t you believe them? They couldn’t print it if it weren’t true, you know.
My wife got all huffy at a friends’ house when our hostess asked me to remove the tab from my beer can to support dialysis. I quickly retorted that that was an Urban Legend. She took it in stride, but my wife! It turns out that her high school had a huge campagne to collect them. How dare I impugne such a noble effort!
I didn’t get to ask her exactly who the patient was that they were collecting for, the hospital they were at, or the aluminum company that was so generous. I just got a long, quiet drive home.
(A small part of me wanted to ask, “Is is my fault that your whole town is gullible?” But then my libido stepped in and told my brain, “We probably won’t get any tonight, but if you say that, we’ll never get any ever again!”)
I have a friend that always, always, always sends me ever UL, every fake virus warning, ever FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!! E-mail she gets. And I always, always, always e-mail her back with links to snopes or datafellows and tell her “Check here before sending these warnings!” But she never does. She usually doesn’t get huffy, though (except a couple weeks ago when she sent me the Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe–she insisted there used to be a Neiman-Marcus cafe in town that sold delicious but expensive cookies :rolleyes:). Usually she just e-mails me back with something like, “I thought it was fake, but I wasn’t sure.” Sheesh, how many times have I sent you these links? Don’t you know how to bookmark pages?? If you think it’s fake, then look it up before sending it to everyone in your address book! Sheesh and double sheesh.
